Many of you may be wondering how hard the typhoon hit Cebu and us. Well, with no cable TV in our house, we didn't even know that there was a typhoon. We just thought that rainy season had begun. It did rain here for about 36 hours straight and dumped about 5-6 inches which I could measure by the increase in our swimming pool level. At night the wind did pick up and we did wake up to a lot of leaves and palm branches down in our yard and pool. Other than that, it was just a rain storm.
We just learned yesterday that it was a typhoon with a level of 1 -2 here in Cebu province and a level 3 in Manila where the landslides happened. So far the press is reporting about 1000 people dead in Manila.
There about 26 typhoons that pass through the Philippines each year. I learned this studying this last week about the food crisis here. Because of the weather activity on most of the islands, it is difficult to raise certain crops. We did pick Cebu as it is one of the most protected islands in the Philippines. So much so, that this is the first week that we have experienced any type of noticeble wind.
The one tragedy that I think may impact our Stake and those around us was the two ferry boats that capsized. There were 800 people in 1 boat and 100 in the other. These were two boats leaving Manila coming to Cebu. So far we have heard that only 36 people have been found. The farries are the cheapest means of travel from island to island, and they pack them in really tight.
A terrible tragedy. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Filipino families.
3 comments:
We do have cable t.v., but I didn't know about a typhoon, either, until I read this post. I'm not so good at keeping up with the news.
Typhoons are so scary. I remember being in a typhon 8 in Hong Kong and watching the high rises sway with the wind. I'm glad your family is safe!
Dad and I didn't watch much news during our wonderful week in Hawaii, but we did hear a little about the typhoon in The Philippines and about the ferry accident. So sad! We wondered how you were faring (Jill told me the night or so before we left that the rain had been consistently falling there - probably the beginning of the typhoon) but didn't have your phone number with us. Sarah was going to get your Skype number to us, but that didn't happen. The 4 hour time difference in Hawaii plus the fact that we were enjoying our anniversary trip definitely made a dent in our communication with the "outside world". Hope to chat with you all soon. Glad you received the package. I think it took almost 2 weeks from mailing to arrival. Does mail arrive at your home or do you have to go somewhere to collect it?
Lots of love, Mom/Grandma D.
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