New Typhoon pictures have been posted, by popular demand:
CNN article written by a fellow volunteer about a landslide zone near my office.
My Webshots Account
New album of Typhoon pictures
Other articles and pictures pending publishing.
New notes:
As the relief operations in Albay get organized and efficient, I have begun implementing the BioSand water filter project that I have talked about with some of you loyal friends/family/readers. I have recieved word from a number of people who feel morally obligated, or at least excited, to help financially in some way. The BioSand water filter project needs funding as well as some subsidies so that some of the poorer folks here can buy one. In essence, it is a filter that costs about $24 to buy and will provide up to 220 liters of clean drinking water per day for longer than you will live. It is a great project in need of funding. If you feel like you want to help with this, then I encourage you to contact me. Please don't feel obligated to give, but understand that if you do, this money will go to a good project and not to line the pockets of a local opportunist.
Side note: Although some of you may be encouraged to give goods instead of money, understand that the shipping costs and time will make it much more worth it to merely wire money this direction. Before you even think about sending anything, talk to me; I will provide any transparency in project execution that you might require so that you know I am not a lying sack of monkey poo.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Ouch!
Long blog, cliff notes:
-Typhoon happens to city.
-Typhoon happens to Page.
-Page is scared.
-Page is okay.
-All other volunteers are just as okay as Page.
-PICTURES ARE HERE
-.....
-Profit
As many of you now know, through my Mom's emails and the large international news coverage, Legazpi City was just hit by the biggest typhoon in more than 30 years.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Philippine_typhoon_toll_may_hit_1,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Pacific_typhoon_season
Wiki's stories cover what anyone who is not a Bikolano saw, I am here to provide the front-line details about this massive disaster.
November 29th:
Went about my daily life; left work a little early after the school shut down the power, knowing that the typhoon was on its way. I didn't think much of this round of bad weather since the last typhoon, Milenyo, was reported to be the worst in 20 years. I figured, stupidly, that there really wasn't that much cause for alarm. Legazpi City had a signal 3 (out of a possible 5) and I was content to go to bed and not to work in the morning. The farthest extremities of the typhoon had begun to reach town and rain intermittently. I went to Julia's (another volunteer who lives in town) to camp out the storm with a friendly face. We cooked dinner and bought a coupla beers to pass the evening away.
November 30th:
7 AM: The last storm warning text message I would recieve arrived and said that this one was gonna be a doozy, specifically a signal 4. In the Philippines, typhoon strength is categorized by area, not by storm. It is said that a storm is of a certain signal in your area depending on the wave height and wind speed where you are specifically. Personally I think this system is decieving, people assume that the storm is going to stay one signal in their area and not get any worse, when that is the opposite of what is likely to happen. Typhoon Durian (appropriately named after the smelly fruit) was a signal 4 which, for a Filipino typhoon, translates to winds between 131 and 155 mph and 13 to 18 foot waves.
But enough science, all that is available on Wiki. Wiki does not go into what happens when you are poor, have a poorly constructed house, and then things are leveled by a giant tropical pain-machine.
8 AM: Still lying in bed. I like bed. Bed is warm. Bed doesn't have rain in it...yet.
9 AM: See 8 AM.
10 AM: The wind is beginning to pick up, but I am still not worried. Again, see 8 AM.
11 AM: It is hard to lay in bed comfortably when loose pieces of metal sheeting are being slapped against the roof by the wind. I get up. There is no more cell signal.
12 PM: The storm has been raging for a while and Julia and I point out the growing stream in the road outside her apartment. We laugh about how lucky we are that it is so small and that we are elevated above the road.
12:30 PM: Things really start to suck.
12:31 PM: The roof is getting louder and louder. The rain is now seeping in through the cracks in the roof and is raining in the dining room. We move all important stuff to the bedroom and hide it in Julia's dresser. The rain is now flying in through every gap or crack in the house. Some buckets are put down to catch the water as it falls.
12:33 PM: The first bucket fills.
12:34-1:34 PM: This hour was scary. Looking out into the street, the floodwaters rise from nothing to 4 feet in the road. 4 feet of water outside translates to 3 feet inside. We are standing on stools inside the apartment and watch as they, and then our feet on top of them, are submerged. A casual glance at the bathroom reveals that the floodwaters have overtopped the toilet. We are now standing in a mix of floodwater and raw sewage. Ew.
We look out the window at the front of Julia's place and see a jeep go floating by and decide that things are maybe a little TOO hectic to stick around here much longer. I contact the neighbors, who live in a 2 story concrete house and happen to be Julia's landlady's cousins, by climbing up to their balcony above the raging torrent that was once a street. In order to get Julia's 80-year-old landlady to that house, we have to wade through waist-deep water. The landlady is old, and waist-deep for me means neck-deep for her. If we had a camera out, this would have made the headlines of some major newspaper; the big, white american carrying the small, frail, old woman to safety over raging floodwaters. Oh well.
1:35 PM: I see that bucket go floating by, rendered useless by floodwaters
Afternoon/Evening: Once the floodwaters had risen to waist deep, adrenaline took over my brain and made the rest of the day a blur. We escaped from the storm to a large concrete house and were lucky enough to be fed and given a bed by the landlady's cousins. I pass out and have dreams about things besides large tropical weather patterns.
December 1st: In the morning, we look at Julia's place and try to do some basic cleanup. Basic turned into shoveling and scrubbing all of the mud from her floor. I return to my house to find broken glass and wet books, but nothing too intense. There is no power, no information, no cell signal and no running water. Julia and I clean all day long, sunup to sundown.
December 2nd: More of the same, but with an exciting twist. Around noon, when I am carrying buckets of water from the pump to the house for laundry, a man darts by me on his bike, almost running me over. At home, I would have just screamed at him, but this was unusual for the Philippines; people are generally courteous here. I look where he came from and see groups of other people running up the hills and, in general, going places in a hurry. When someone finally stopped to answer my inquiries, all he said was "TSUNAMI!!!!!!" and kept running. I looked down the road where everyone was running from and I felt what can only be described as pure terror. My mind froze and my body panicked. I told Julia and, within 30 seconds, we had both grabbed the 2 or 3 items we deemed essential and were on our bikes ready to ride. At that moment, the barangay captain came out and said it was just a hoax.
I found out later that 24 people were hospitalized and 3 killed due to the panic caused by this scare. I was more scared for my life in those 30 seconds than at any point during the previous day's typhoon.
Since then: I have been helping with any relief effort I can find. According to local authorities, 7-10 students at Aquinas University were killed when the floodwaters entered their boarding house. My university looks like it got hit by a giant mud-bomb. The morgues are filled with bodies. Barangay Padang (CNN web story pending) was completely wiped out by a volcanic landslide. Luckily for Peace Corps, myself and all the other volunteers (we are all safe and healthy) have been brought together for our language learning camp. We have been working half days and assisting any local relief efforts available the rest of the time. We play with the kids, we carry sacks of rice, we do whatever we can. This will probably continue for me once the other volunteers leave for their respective sites.
If you finished reading all this, I thank you for caring. If you skipped to this part from the beginning, then you are a bad, bad person.
-Typhoon happens to city.
-Typhoon happens to Page.
-Page is scared.
-Page is okay.
-All other volunteers are just as okay as Page.
-PICTURES ARE HERE
-.....
-Profit
As many of you now know, through my Mom's emails and the large international news coverage, Legazpi City was just hit by the biggest typhoon in more than 30 years.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Philippine_typhoon_toll_may_hit_1,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Pacific_typhoon_season
Wiki's stories cover what anyone who is not a Bikolano saw, I am here to provide the front-line details about this massive disaster.
November 29th:
Went about my daily life; left work a little early after the school shut down the power, knowing that the typhoon was on its way. I didn't think much of this round of bad weather since the last typhoon, Milenyo, was reported to be the worst in 20 years. I figured, stupidly, that there really wasn't that much cause for alarm. Legazpi City had a signal 3 (out of a possible 5) and I was content to go to bed and not to work in the morning. The farthest extremities of the typhoon had begun to reach town and rain intermittently. I went to Julia's (another volunteer who lives in town) to camp out the storm with a friendly face. We cooked dinner and bought a coupla beers to pass the evening away.
November 30th:
7 AM: The last storm warning text message I would recieve arrived and said that this one was gonna be a doozy, specifically a signal 4. In the Philippines, typhoon strength is categorized by area, not by storm. It is said that a storm is of a certain signal in your area depending on the wave height and wind speed where you are specifically. Personally I think this system is decieving, people assume that the storm is going to stay one signal in their area and not get any worse, when that is the opposite of what is likely to happen. Typhoon Durian (appropriately named after the smelly fruit) was a signal 4 which, for a Filipino typhoon, translates to winds between 131 and 155 mph and 13 to 18 foot waves.
But enough science, all that is available on Wiki. Wiki does not go into what happens when you are poor, have a poorly constructed house, and then things are leveled by a giant tropical pain-machine.
8 AM: Still lying in bed. I like bed. Bed is warm. Bed doesn't have rain in it...yet.
9 AM: See 8 AM.
10 AM: The wind is beginning to pick up, but I am still not worried. Again, see 8 AM.
11 AM: It is hard to lay in bed comfortably when loose pieces of metal sheeting are being slapped against the roof by the wind. I get up. There is no more cell signal.
12 PM: The storm has been raging for a while and Julia and I point out the growing stream in the road outside her apartment. We laugh about how lucky we are that it is so small and that we are elevated above the road.
12:30 PM: Things really start to suck.
12:31 PM: The roof is getting louder and louder. The rain is now seeping in through the cracks in the roof and is raining in the dining room. We move all important stuff to the bedroom and hide it in Julia's dresser. The rain is now flying in through every gap or crack in the house. Some buckets are put down to catch the water as it falls.
12:33 PM: The first bucket fills.
12:34-1:34 PM: This hour was scary. Looking out into the street, the floodwaters rise from nothing to 4 feet in the road. 4 feet of water outside translates to 3 feet inside. We are standing on stools inside the apartment and watch as they, and then our feet on top of them, are submerged. A casual glance at the bathroom reveals that the floodwaters have overtopped the toilet. We are now standing in a mix of floodwater and raw sewage. Ew.
We look out the window at the front of Julia's place and see a jeep go floating by and decide that things are maybe a little TOO hectic to stick around here much longer. I contact the neighbors, who live in a 2 story concrete house and happen to be Julia's landlady's cousins, by climbing up to their balcony above the raging torrent that was once a street. In order to get Julia's 80-year-old landlady to that house, we have to wade through waist-deep water. The landlady is old, and waist-deep for me means neck-deep for her. If we had a camera out, this would have made the headlines of some major newspaper; the big, white american carrying the small, frail, old woman to safety over raging floodwaters. Oh well.
1:35 PM: I see that bucket go floating by, rendered useless by floodwaters
Afternoon/Evening: Once the floodwaters had risen to waist deep, adrenaline took over my brain and made the rest of the day a blur. We escaped from the storm to a large concrete house and were lucky enough to be fed and given a bed by the landlady's cousins. I pass out and have dreams about things besides large tropical weather patterns.
December 1st: In the morning, we look at Julia's place and try to do some basic cleanup. Basic turned into shoveling and scrubbing all of the mud from her floor. I return to my house to find broken glass and wet books, but nothing too intense. There is no power, no information, no cell signal and no running water. Julia and I clean all day long, sunup to sundown.
December 2nd: More of the same, but with an exciting twist. Around noon, when I am carrying buckets of water from the pump to the house for laundry, a man darts by me on his bike, almost running me over. At home, I would have just screamed at him, but this was unusual for the Philippines; people are generally courteous here. I look where he came from and see groups of other people running up the hills and, in general, going places in a hurry. When someone finally stopped to answer my inquiries, all he said was "TSUNAMI!!!!!!" and kept running. I looked down the road where everyone was running from and I felt what can only be described as pure terror. My mind froze and my body panicked. I told Julia and, within 30 seconds, we had both grabbed the 2 or 3 items we deemed essential and were on our bikes ready to ride. At that moment, the barangay captain came out and said it was just a hoax.
I found out later that 24 people were hospitalized and 3 killed due to the panic caused by this scare. I was more scared for my life in those 30 seconds than at any point during the previous day's typhoon.
Since then: I have been helping with any relief effort I can find. According to local authorities, 7-10 students at Aquinas University were killed when the floodwaters entered their boarding house. My university looks like it got hit by a giant mud-bomb. The morgues are filled with bodies. Barangay Padang (CNN web story pending) was completely wiped out by a volcanic landslide. Luckily for Peace Corps, myself and all the other volunteers (we are all safe and healthy) have been brought together for our language learning camp. We have been working half days and assisting any local relief efforts available the rest of the time. We play with the kids, we carry sacks of rice, we do whatever we can. This will probably continue for me once the other volunteers leave for their respective sites.
If you finished reading all this, I thank you for caring. If you skipped to this part from the beginning, then you are a bad, bad person.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)