... It pours.

Typhoon weather north and south. Two dead in Cebu, half a million homeless. Elsewhere, a storm surge, three to four meters high. Earthquake and landslides. Lahar in Guinobatan. No power in some towns in Isabela. The floods were described as historical, covering some roofs. A bridge is destroyed, snapped in two like toothpicks.

Residents familiar with the ruthlessness of typhoons said it was never this bad. The age of extreme climate — Apocalyptic? — is telling us we had better get used to it. By going through more?

Thankfully, the Sierra Madre mountain range provided some very valuable protection. Still, typhoon Uwan – what a name! – felled trees and tore down billboards. Live up to your name, Uwan, never come back again after this first visit! (If the letter U is the 21st in the alphabet, it will take the weather forecasters quite a while before another U is needed from their list of names.)

Up in the mountains the city of Baguio was not spared, with 3,000 families forced to evacuate to higher ground. In the Ilocos, 3,609 residents were forced to leave their homes. As were those living in Albay. And then there’s the irony of Camarines Sur being forced to abandon its ₱17.5 billion flood control project, or so it was reported.

Public works Secretary Vince Dizon, his hair growing more silvery by the day, was tireless in inspecting flood control projects – did he encounter any ghosts? What better time to hunt for ghosts than immediately after All Saints and All Souls?

In Navotas, Mega Manila’s fishing port, the floods were said to be chest-high, aggravated by the high tide and forcing the evacuation of 8,000 residents. So cook was surprised that in the palengke in our part of Quezon City, the price of fish did not go up by much. As one vendor told her, it’s not yet time to eat gold.