Rammasun, the typhoon

Rammasun, also known in the Philippines as Glenda, is the first typhoon to barrel towards Manila this year. With winds blowing at around 200 kph, it promised to wreak havoc to everything in its path. However, it dwarved in intensity when compared to 2013's Haiyan (typhoon Yolanda), the strongest typhoon to ever hit land anywhere in recorded history... And of all places, it landed in the Philippines.

While my neighbors were sleeplessly waiting for Rammasun's arrival in the neighborhood, I fell asleep! I mean, a typhoon was coming... There's nothing I could do about it... Might as well take some rest and then deal with whatever came after in the morning. And so despite the howling winds, noisy chimes, and rustling leaves, I slept. Extremely confident or stupid, take your pick.

When daylight filled the house, it was time to assess the damage. Part of the house's roof has been blown off by the typhoon!! This is the very first time that a typhoon has done that to my house in its 34-year existence!! Goodness! Even my parents were shocked... And they weren't even physically present! Because of the gaping hole, it was raining by the telly and the stereo. I just had to move them and the rest of the electronic gadgets to a more water-proof location... I still can't believe that I, single-handedly, was able to carry the heavy stuff! And to push a heavy cabinet out of the way too!! Normally, I need help doing those things. This must be like the flight or flight adrenaline rush people keep talking about.

Part of the roof, gone! Raining in the house! pic.twitter.com/Oi2Tra0Se9

— Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) July 16, 2014

Buckets in place to catch the rain leaking into the house, I went outside to start cleaning up.

If inside the house was bad, outside the house was worse. Tree trunks everywhere. Leaves everywhere. I pulled a fallen tree trunk blocking the garage before I started cleaning up. 

 

(The debris left outside my house after Glenda's wake.)

It took a few hours but at last, the job was done. The whole community was cleaning such that by the time we hit lunch hour, it looked like the typhoon never passed by! My neighbors couldn't help but comment at my predicament, however, because it turned out that my house was the one hardest hit.

  

(The neighborhood looked clean about an hour after the last of Glenda's winds have passed.)

No rest yet for the weary. It was then time to worry about my fridge's contents. Several hours of no electricity meant that everything in the freezer had to be cooked or thrown out. I am definitely NOT interested in getting food poisoned; let the doctors worry about the really life-threatening, Rammasun-related cases, right? So, the fish bones that were supposedly going to be fish stock became adobong isda that was then passed on to the kitties. The pork steak was eventually cooked and shared with friends at dinner. The chocolates were finished off. And the rest of the food was thrown out once I got around to cleaning the fridge.

The amazing thing about this whole experience is that I was able to laugh at the sorry state of my post-Rammasun affairs. Yes, the house was damaged. Yes, there was a lot of things to do. Yes, there's no electricity and no water supply. Yes, I had to deal with several problems in quick succession alone (unlike my neighbors who have families with them). But the bottomline is that I was lucky that this was the brunt of the storm that I got. I cannot complain. I've had it worse before and lots of people had it downright bad right now.