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TYPHOON COUNTRY
AERIAL view of Catanduanes ALEXPUNKER | DREAMSTIME.COM
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By Cai U. Ordinario
CAT-LIKE shriek could be heard as typhoon winds blew and rain poured in torrents on the morning of November 1st. Supertyphoon Rolly had finally arrived in Catanduanes, the land of the howling winds. Rosemarie Yutan, a native of Catanduanes, and her family were staying with a friend in what was a relatively safe home with concrete walls and floors. But nothing could have prepared her for what came next. The entire house shook. At that point, she knew. This was no ordinary typhoon. As the storm raged, the heavy wooden doors of the home that took four men to install were gone with the wind and the glass windows of the home shattered into a billion pieces. It was their good fortune that all the chaos spared the second floor of the home where they were all staying. Supertyphoon Rolly battered the province from 3 a.m. in the morning until 8 a.m. Five long hours that brought flash floods as the heavy rains sent water racing down the mountains, causing rivers and creeks to overflow. The typhoon also brought a five-meter storm surge—at high tide—causing many people to drown. “Ang daming namatay. Hindi pa lang talaga nabibilang lahat. Dun sa isang barangay, 65 na daw ang namatay dahil nalunod, inanod mga bahay [Many people died but we have not been able to count all of them. I heard in one barangay, 65 people drowned because their homes were washed away],” Yutan added. Yutan said during their ordeal, the wind was so strong that they had to yawn periodically just to relieve the pressure from their ears. The winds were so strong that Caster Ubalde, another native of the province, said “Nakakatakot, nabibingi na kami [It was scary. The howling wind was deafening]!” he said in a video he sent to his brother after the storm passed. Ubalde was telling his brother
through the video that rainwater had already entered their house through the windows. All the rooms were wet, except for the room of their younger sister working as a nurse in Melbourne, Australia. As photos and videos of these harrowing experiences poured in on social media, memories of a cold and stormy night 14 years ago came rushing in to Charlaine Ubalde. She remembered typhoon Reming in 2006 which hit Virac, packing 190 kph maximum sustained winds and 225 kph gusts. The typhoon left Ubalde and her family with nothing. “Walang natirang tuyong damit sa amin (lahat) kami basang-basa, yung tipong bibigay na katawan mo. Sumisikip na dibdib mo sa sobrang lamig dahil walang matinong masisilungan talaga [We were soaked to the bone, all our clothes were wet. It felt like we were already getting sick. Our chests hurt because of the extreme cold since we had nowhere to go],” Ubalde recalled. “Washed out ang bahay namin. Tinangay ’yung mga di na namin nakayanan ilipat sa church kung saan kami nag-evacuate na muntikmuntik na din masira. Nakakatrauma [Our house was washed out. The storm took everything we could not bring with us to the church where we evacuated to. The church itself was almost destroyed by the typhoon. It was traumatic],” she added. Supertyphoon Rolly resurfaced a lot of memories for many others in the island province, which initial official reports said had been the hardest hit, with 90 percent of crops and infrastructure clearly wiped out or damaged, as seen from the first aerial sweeps by government helicopters. One Catandunganon recalled being
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THE remains of homes at a community after Supertyphoon Rolly passes by San Andres, Catanduanes, November 2, 2020. PHILIPPINE RED CROSS VIA AP
The ‘favorite’ entry point of most typhoons between 1947 and 2017, the island province of Catanduanes experienced yet another nightmare with Supertyphoon Rolly. But the folk who prefer to stay are raring for summer to come in this ‘land of the howling winds.’ cramped in a concrete bathroom with eight other people when Typhoon Rosing hit the province in the 1990s. She said it was the scariest moment of her life. The same typhoon, Yutan said, caused a huge landslide which killed many in Barangay Summit or Pedro Vega in Viga, Catanduanes. Another Catandunganon recalled her mother and grandfather pushing their piano against the front door to prevent the wind and rain from coming into their house during Typhoon Sisang in the 1980s. Her sister also recalled that during that particular typhoon, there was a minor earthquake, making it one of the most terrify-
ing experiences of her childhood. The experience in a more recent typhoon experience, Typhoon Niña, was shared by a couple who grew up in Catanduanes. They came to the island on a vacation with their children and when the typhoon hit, the house they were staying in became flooded and their children had to go on top of the dining table just to keep dry. The next day, they found the car they rented had been swept under a large mango tree. They had no choice but to take the C130 back to Manila. The horror of typhoons does not stop during the “siege” where rains and wind batter the province. Life
in the aftermath of a typhoon is another major challenge for many Catandunganons. Assessing the damage and finding out how much they lost is heartbreaking. On top of that, hunger and the lack of utilities that would persist for months is another difficult experience. A few days have passed since Supertyphoon Rolly ravaged Catanduanes. And those living in Virac like Caster Ubalde have to contend with the lack of resources. “Sobrang hirap na talaga dito [Life has truly become very difficult here],” he said. On Thursday, he decided to withdraw money from one of the ATMs that were left standing. He saw a very long queue but decided
to stick it out because he needed the money. But, after two hours of waiting in line, he decided to head for home. Maybe, he thought, going to the ATM earlier on Friday would mean fewer people in line. Other Catandunganons noticed that with the need to make immediate repairs to their homes, construction material prices have already increased. One Virac resident said it is taking P30,000 worth of materials just to fix parts of her roof and walls that were damaged by the storm. Due to Typhoon Rolly, Catanduanes is also without power and its residents do not have access to safe water sources. In typhoons past, it took months to get a sense of normalcy in the province. This is why the announcement of Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella in a briefing on Thursday morning came as a pleasant surprise. He said power could return in the province in one to two weeks. However, Fuentebella said, a 100-percent return of the electricity in the entire province will take longer. He said it is likely that this will happen before Christmas. Typhoons through the years have brought Catandunganons so much loss and pain. Poverty incidence in the province was lower at 20.3 percent in 2018. However, prior to that year, poverty incidence was increasing, reaching 43.4 percent in 2015 after posting 33.8 percent in 2012 and 29.1 percent in 2009. The primary source of livelihood in the province, abaca, may have been entirely wiped out by Typhoon Rolly this year. Catanduanes is the largest source of hand-stripped abaca in the Philippines and some Catandunganons believe they will have to wait for another three years to recover. An unofficial list of the most destructive typhoons circulating on social media showed that Virac was the entry point of many of these typhoons between 1947 and 2017. This may have been the basis of the cruel monicker “Land of the Howling Winds.” However, Catandunganons believe there is more to the province than just the harrowing stories of Continued on A2
n JAPAN 0.4673 n UK 63.5706 n HK 6.2367 n CHINA 7.3147 n SINGAPORE 35.8254 n AUSTRALIA 35.2085 n EU 57.1739 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.8919
Source: BSP (November 6, 2020)