It was one of the strongest, most deadly tropical cyclones ever recorded. More than 6,200 people perished in the Philippines; I don't know the numbers for other places. The wind-speeds were given as high as 165 and 170 miles-per-hour at landfall; fortunately for us, landfall was several islands and a few hundred miles to the east of us, with the storm moving westward over the central "Visayan" islands of the Philippines. We got the last of it, being the farthest west, but we were right under the middle where we caught everything there was to catch, and that was plenty. "Just like in the books," we first had two-plus hours of incredible winds from one direction (north) as the storm moved in from the east; then nearly two hours of complete calm as the "eye" passed over us; then two-plus hours of wind from the south as the counter-clockwise rotation of the storm passed its trailing edge in the opposite direction. I have experienced 75- to 80- mph winds a number of times, and this wind was by far stronger than anything I could have imagined. We were very blessed to have it ALL in daylight; the passage here was between about noon and 5:30 p.m. The confusion, fright and panic would have been much worse at night-time.
My regular readers already know we had no harm and very little damage. We're grateful for that, but sad to see the amount of damage to the homes of "the poorest of the poor" nearby. We saw none of the subsequent news coverage of photos and videos and heard no news reports - our communications cable was taken out by the storm, and is only now restored for about a week, after 24+ weeks without TV or internet service. One local radio "talk + news" program was available on our battery- portable radios for several hours each morning, but its broadcast is in the local language so I didn't "get", much of it. All of you have probably seen lots more than I did, but I will put up some of the photos I took especially looking at "before" and "after" plus some of the odd or ironic things that struck me at the time.
The elementary school roof is visible at the far end, about 100
meters from the intersection. The banged-up corner of the bus
stop in upper left serves as reference point for the next photo.
the school.
hundred people rushed to take shelter at the school. Many
more joined them when the second "blow" ended at 5:30 p.m.
In the confusion, one tiny flip-flop dropped from its owner's foot;
perhaps recovered later, perhaps not.
A "leaf tunnel" where the only passage through the street was
where the top of the tree rested against the opposite-side fence.
where it was blown across the street into a fence.
In weeks and months following, this was a common scene;
people waiting in line for distributed "necessities."
The school was in fair shape: Some roof damage but far better than the area surrounding our mostly-concrete-house street. Several hundred people camped out there for more than a month as they struggled to build any sort of structure to replace houses. Relief supplies and media coverage to our area were pretty scant for several weeks; the outside world's attention was mostly directed towards the east side of the islands, where all the crews had gone before the storm in anticipation of its landfall.
Meantime, out in the neighborhood, things were pretty rough
all over. The concrete walls remaining are the bathroom of
one house at the back end of my in-laws' family compound.
The canoe may have been placed against the tree keep
from blowing away; or maybe the storm put it there.
in the previous photo. Always very trim and well-kept, before.
After, the only way I'm sure it's the same place is that the
canoe is barely visible leaning against the tree at right.
A few steps away, one of Bernadette's uncles is clearing
debris away from his place. The panels of this house, and
others, were straightened and re-used when possible.
One odd little thing I noticed was this pair of shoes which
were still hanging there, after nearly everything else was gone.
Out on the main road, utility poles and wires were everywhere
for the first 2 or 3 days. No worry about handling the wires during
cleanup; there was no electricity for 3 weeks!
Several canoes are parked along the road at top - moved
before the storm to keep them from blowing or washing away.
than more-exposed places on the "beach" side, to the west.
bean and squash vines plus a papaya tree was so dense you
couldn't have seen the house door from here. Now, they're GONE!
orchids, entirely undamaged; another of "many odd little things."
Electricity being out for three weeks went beyond inconvenience to hardship in my opinion. In this climate of high temperature and very high humidity, there just is not enough absorption "margin" for a foreigner's body to cool itself - - the air is already too "wet" to wick away perspiration - - the body cannot cool itself - - and you feel like you're literally in a slow-cooker. I "adapt" by staying close to an electric fan whenever possible, otherwise I quickly begin to overheat and heat stroke would be a possibility. I carried a sprayer bottle, kept wet with water fairly often, and did anything I could to keep cooled down. At night I think EVERYONE was waking up with the bed soaked with sweat, and nothing to do about it. I would get the battery- LED light and read for awhile, then try to get some sleep - - but little success.
Friday. Here, he's using a fiberglass pole with a hook - -
to seat our service line in the split at the top of a bamboo post we
provided. From this post, at the highway corner, he stretched the wire - -
to a tree near the corner of our property, and a few minutes
later, we were hooked up! Hurray!
Well, I have lots more photos of the aftermath and rebuilding from several months of activity since the typhoon. I'll continue the story next time, but probably will do some shorter topical "segments" in blogs instead of keeping each post on one topic. Lots has happened - -
We are very blessed to have never missed a meal, to have only slight damage, to have always had cooking gas and other means for preparing our food; we have learned to notice our blessings a little better than we did before. We are relieved to finally have cable reconnected, as it is our most reliable means of contact with any place beyond our immediate area.
We wish all of you the best - a Happy and Prosperous 2014 -
Tim and Bernadette Larson, Antique Province, Philippines
Glad you are reconnected to the world.
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