The Storm Proper
I woke up last Thursday from the sound of the wind banging on my galvanized roof. The storm is really on it's full rage. I was informed last night when I arrived home that we will be experiencing storm signal no. 2, but something feels not right. The winds tells me this is not an ordinary storm.
We stayed inside my house the early part of the day, with me undecided if I should leave for makati or just stay inside home. I can't even open my doors or windows because of the strong winds which I reckoned to be around 100 to 130kph , exactly the same feeling of the wind on my face which I get when I'm travelling on my bike at the same speed. This can't be signal no. 2, so I decided to stay home.
I can't open the tv for the news, I can't listen to any radio station, can't even turn my computer on and go online. We lost power early morning. Another precautionary move from Meralco to prevent any electrical disaster from happening. They usually turn off the electricity when there are heavy rains.
I decided to go out when I learned that 3 of our trees was uprooted, with one of the tree getting entangled in the process with my electrical line, telephone and cable lines, snapping all three (3) of them in the process.
I had to be a electrician, telephone lineman, and a woodcutter all at the same time to clear off this mess, or at least just some of it.
The AftermathThe strong winds stopped later in the afternoon with my house and my parent's house still standing proud. We are still blessed, a neighbor just a few blocks away from our place lost her entire house when it collapsed. Although it was really a sad sight to see our favorite place for siesta will not be the same again.
I walked around our compound to check the condition around. Galvanized sheets lying around.
Our rambutan and mango trees uprooted and was thrown like 2-3 meters from the place where it was originally rooted. A sad sight, these trees always bears fruits for us for the last 8-10 years
I had the chance to survey the rest of the city later in the afternoon and saw the sad condition the city was in. The city's favorite Mango tree which stands proud in the middle of the city plaza was battered.
A lot of neon signs was either blown, damaged or hanging on the electric post or electic wires.
McDonalds "golden arches" sign on top of a steel post which stands like 20 - 30 feet up high fell down on one of the store below.
Jollibee's sign fell down too, falling down on a car but was held suspended by electical wires, which saved the car and it's passenger from critical damage (the car was moved when I took the picture and can be seen on the leftmost part of the image, with a guy standing in white shirt).
With the current state the city was in and the damaged that the storm made, I assume power won't be back up for another 2 to 3 days. Sigh....
Still, it still feels good to be alive. And just like what Noah saw after the "Great Flood", a rainbow appeared after the storm. A reminder of God's promise to never again destroy the world by flood and to remind us of how powerful God is.
Count all your blessings!Labels: News Flash