Team,

The winds have settled down and the rains have stopped. Almost in a flash, the Manila facility was inundated by 3 hours of heavy rain and strong winds in one direction, a 30-minute lull during the eye of the storm, and another 2 hour lashing in the opposite direction. The site was right in the dead-center of the storm with 130kph winds known as Typhoon Milenyo. No matter how well we planned, nature took its own course and the typhoon arrived 12 hours earlier, right when we had a full-shift in operation. While this may have seemed like a disaster, it provided a silver-lining.

The building has a parapet surrounding the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors. With the heavy rain and strong winds, these parapets got flooded easily and as they flooded, they began to overflow into the building. The first area affected was the general office area on the 2nd floor. The HR and Finance offices were literally flooded with water, so computers, files, and other items had to be evacuated quickly. All available hands had to scoop up the water to prevent it from spreading further. There was a human chain working hand-in-hand, passing full buckets of water to the drains and empty buckets back to the front lines where the water was flowing in. Some folks had to brave the winds and keep the drains clear to stop the flooding which despite the containment efforts, reached the production are in the wafer probing and die attach area. As this area was put under control, many other leaks also had to be dealt with in the 3rd floor, in the stairwell, and most of all, on the 4th floor where the facilities equipments had to be shutdown.

Except for a few felled trees around the building, the damage sustained is very minor considering what could have happened had there been not enough hands on-site to stop the flooding. All said there are many experiences that will be talked about over and over again as today's events are recalled. One thought that stands tall in the face of this setback is the tremendous teamwork that was demonstrated today in facing this crisis.

Thank you to everyone for their courageous efforts, teamwork and boundaryless behavior to keep our site intact.

Sincerely,
Elmer Lapena
Site Leader
PerkinElmer Optoelectronics, Philippines

Yep. That's my dad. The letter isn't meant for me. Haha, I just wanted to post it. Anyway, the friggin' Milenyo won't leave. Yet. It's dark all over Manila and I'm really worried about everyone :\

Exams are coming. No, really. Mother Tongue's tomorrow. Ahhh I'm so lucky. Hah. Well, I'm not going to school tomorrow. If I do, that would be to pass up something. I'm feeling excited about the exams. Well, SORRRRY. Ciao x)