Living in Typhoon Season

If saw my post yesterday you’ll know it’s been raining vigorously for the past week. Jerry’s been making the most of Tropical Storm Urdujua which was upgraded to a Category 2 Cyclone this afternoon.

Housebound Jerry and I were watching a movie when this loud shrieking noise came from my computer. I totally freaked thinking some virus was deleting all my work until I realised the noise was actually coming from my iPhone.

I’ve never actually had an emergency alert like this on my phone before, and believe me that noise would get anyone’s attention. It was LOUD and piercing. What the message says is that Tropical Storm URDUJA is causing heavy rain, flooding and landslides.

Before I even had time to read it thoroughly I heard voices on a loud speaker in the street. Jerry and I grabbed towels and raced outside to hear it properly. Barangay officials were driving down the road warning that the TS URDUJA was now a Category 2 Typhoon and to take precautions against flooding, landslides and storm surge.

So for me it was a trip to the market in the pouring rain to buy drinking water, fresh and canned food, plus candles. The Barangay announcement also let us know the power would be cut around 3am tomorrow morning for an indefinite period.

For Jerry and I it’s simply a matter of putting towels around the doors and windows, charging everything and not leaving electronics out tonight. But for the very poor living in bamboo houses, tarpaulins and fishing boats, they are in for more discomfort than we can imagine.

Please spare some love and prayers for the fishermen missing in Samar, and the thousands of people affected by heavy flooding and landslides. There are so many people we will never know that have lost all their income this week, there are children with nowhere dry to sleep, and there are people who will seek out loan sharks to replace damaged stock in their stores .

I think the biggest lesson I have learned since coming here is the bitter inheritance of poverty. I hope in some small way my blog posts here illustrate the hard reality of life in a developing country and encourage more people to take action to end poverty everywhere.

© 2017 Melinda J. Irvine

• Daily Post: Inheritance
• I’m part of Post A Day 2017
• Location: Estancia, Iloilo (Philipppines)