Sunday, October 18, 2009

Typhoons and Storms

Both Tropical Storm Ketsana a.k.a "Ondoy" in September 26 and the Oct. 3 landfall of Typhoon Parma a.k.a "Pepeng" seemed to be the most devastating typhoons in my 55 years of existence! I thought that the typhoons (3 or 4 of them all at the same time) in 1970 was the worst because it was said that the floods in Central Luzon had practically divided the Luzon Island! I was just a teener then and did not care much about property damage. As far as I can recall, there were no really large catastrophies and a large number of casualties then as what Ondoy and Pepeng had caused. Back then, we thought it was something like what the Bible says about 40 days and 40 nights of rain! Classes were suspended for weeks if not a month.

Baguio City and La Trinidad were not experiencing floods and landslides as it experiences nowadays! The 3 feet-by-3 feet canal running beside our house then did not even overflow! The only solution to this is to delay and slow down the flow of rainwater. Fast flowing water scours its passages and dumps water in waterways faster than it could accomodate.

As of this writing, a
nother typhoon threatens Northern and Central Luzon. Internationally known as Lupit locally named as Ramil. Lupit is a Filipino word that means cruel or brutal. We sincerely hope that it will not be as cruel and brutal as Ketsana (Ondoy) and Parma (Pepeng), if ever it crosses again Luzon.

Credits: Photo courtesy of Fidel A. Demot on his Facebook post http://www.facebook.com/fdemot#/album.php?aid=116629&id=557009013&ref=mf MORE PHOTOS ON THIS LINK