Cristina Gonzales talks about the magnitude of the disaster brought by Typhoon Yolanda

CRISTINA GONZALES, Tacloban councilor and wife of Mayor Alfred Romualdez, showed up in a presscon to prove that text messages saying she died during typhoon Yolanda aren’t true. She said that she and her two daughters, along with other household members, stayed at the second floor of their home which is near the sea.

"The wind was so strong, it blew the roof away, the water was gushing in and our cars started to float. The waves are so big it's like a tsunami. We have to hang on to what was left of our ceiling. We stayed there for two hours until the water receded. We were just thankful we were alive, but as I sat there, I thought is this a dream, is this a movie? People were coming in wounded and houses were flattened. Two or three days before the typhoon, we already prepared for it. People near the shore were moved to evacuation centers. We’re used to typhoons. We prepare. But what we just went through in Tacloban, I don't think any city or country could have been prepared for the magnitude of this disaster.”

We’ve been to Tacloban several times and we know how much Cristine and Mayor Alfred tried hard to beautify their city. Here’s praying they’ll be able to recover quickly and rise from the tragedy that hit them.