A Bermudian caught up in devastating Typhoon Washi in the Philippines has urged Bermuda residents to help the victims.Andrew Harris was visiting his one-year-old daughter Andrea Louise Torres Harris and her mother Malou Torres in Cagayan de Oro city when Washi hit over the weekend.More than 1,000 people have been reported dead or missing, and Mr Harris and his family were staying less than a mile from some of the worst flash flooding.“There was a typhoon warning on Thursday night and it rained all day Friday,” he explained. “This area gets rain but it rarely gets any of the bad storms. We just went to sleep like normal.“It was raining just like it would in Bermuda during a hurricane and the power went out about 3am on Saturday, then a little while later the water went out. By 5.30am the rain had stopped and people were starting to go outside.“I heard a massive roar and I thought the river was next to us, but it was the subdivision (residential area) next door to us flooding.”Mr Harris said an hour after the flash flooding began, water started coming up out of the drains in the roads and no one knew what was going on.Although the water drained out of the area where he was staying with his family, a nearby area next to the Cagayan de Oro river suffered what he described as “massive destruction”.He explained: “We were very very fortunate. Three blocks away they had a foot of water. It was very unnerving as we could hear the roar of the water and people in other subdivisions were breaking holes in the walls to let the water out.”Mr Harris works as facilities manager at the National Museum of Bermuda.His daughter celebrated her first birthday on December 8. His partner, Ms Torres, used to work as a nanny in Bermuda, where they met.“My daughter was just playing in that subdivision (before the disaster),” he said. “The eerie feeling is that we stopped and shopped at a drugstore at 7pm the night before the floods and 8 hours later the building was gone. We were, and are, very fortunate.”He added: “Cagayan de Oro is a city of 500,000 people and 90 percent of the water supply has been damaged. It is estimated to be fixed in 30 days.“Water is precious here now. The funeral homes do not have enough to wash the bodies; that is how bad it is.“We are fortunate again as a relative has water from another municipality and brings us barrels every day for flushing and showering.”Explaining why he contacted The Royal Gazette with his story, he said: “This area and the tens of thousands of people who are homeless and / or displaced need help. Since I know that Bermudians are generous even in hard times, it was thought that an article in your paper would be a great way to drum up support.”Richard Powell of the Filipino Association of Bermuda said he has not heard from any Filipino guest workers affected by the disaster.The Association has set up a relief fund at the Bank of Bermuda. Any donations made by local residents will go to charities in the disaster-hit country. The exact charities will be decided upon when the Association next meets.The HSBC Bermuda account, in the name of the Filipino Association of Bermuda, is under account number 010-8740-55.Donations are also being collected at Western Union branches on Front Street, Hamilton (between 8am and 6pm), Somerset Road, Somerset (between 10am and 4.30pm) and King Street, St George (between 10am and 4.30pm)