The eye of the storm

Here on The Nene we battened down the hatches for a storm that never arrived.  It seems trivial that we even worried about it when you compare it to the truly devastating storm that has hit The Philippines.

Tacloban Harbour in calmer times

I’m finding the news from there particularly poignant because the centre of the storm was in Tacloban a city I lived in for two years.  I can look at the pictures of the devastation and recognise the places that have been damaged.  I know how vulnerable are the shanty towns that have grown up around the edge of the Tacloban Bay.  Many of the people that I worked with lived in bamboo dwellings roofed with grass which offer little protection from falling coconut and banana trees or telegraph poles.

 

Tacloban Shanty Town

I lived through one typhoon that’s epicentre passed through the city.  It was nowhere near as strong as this typhoon and I lived in a concrete house above the areas liable to flooding yet it was still frightening.  I can only imagine how terrifying it was to have the wind howling around a house amongst trees, with roofs that are about to take off and watching torrential rain fall and see the water rising or to live on a hillside where the drenching could trigger landslips.

 The people of The Philippines are resilient.  They have to because disasters strike regularly. They will pick themselves up, clear up the mess and get on with their lives.  They will do it with humour and humanity. One thing my two years in Tacloban did teach me was to love and respect the Filipinos, especially the very poor. At the moment I can’t reach any of the people I know out there but my thoughts are with them and I hope they have come through the storm unscathed.



Bohol hit by the typhoon and a recent earthquake