A Tale of Three Typhoons

This is Typhoon season in the Philippines, but the ones we have just had are much worse than normal.

The first, which shot across central Luzon caused widespread flooding. The biggest town nearest us, Santa Cruz has its centre under water still and the only way to go any further than the main church into the centre is by boat!

The second typhoon brought winds more than rain, it ran over the north
of Luzon, then met up with a mate, another typhoon, turned round and
came back to Luzon and headed to central Luzon bringing rain and
winds.


But the worst was last weekend, Friday night, for us because it passed directly overhead with winds in excess of 150 mph. All night we just heard the terrible noise of the wind and rain except for an hour when the eye was passing overhead when there was a deathly silence.

Next day we had little damage, some banana plants damged, leaves torn off coconut trees, one mahogany tree uprooted but it fell onto a concrete post rather than the fence so didn't do any more damage. And, of course, our Internet access module blown down. However around and about, there was much more damage, driving down to Pagsanhan we saw houses blown away, big trees down, there had been a flash flood depositing tons of mud into peoples homes in Pagsanhan, rooves ripped up etc. So we got off lightly.




I have posted 3 photos taken after the first 2 typhoons at
http://tinyurl.com/yzsbknb
One is of a school completely surrounded by water, what looks like a river to the school's right is actually supposed to be a road.
The second is of rice fields now completely subnmerged in water, as Laguna de Bay, the huge inland lake has risen.
The third is a panorama showing Laguna de bay. The water in the background is supposed to be water, but that in the foreground is supposed to be land.

All were taken from way up our mountain, and it was misty so apolgies for the haziness of the pictures.

The position now is worse, there is even less land visible and the town of Lumban has all but disappeared!

Lets hope we don't get any more like that.