Typhoon Frank

It was almost a week ago when Typhoon Frank (international code named: Fengshen) visited our country. It was sunday morning and I woke up with my room dark and the wind pounding on my closed windows. The rain was noisily pouring outside.

There was no electricity and it was also dark inside the house. I managed to have breakfast with only the candles providing additional illumination.

I was out of touch for sometime. No TV, no radio, and no Internet. Luckily the mobile phones were still working so I could exchange SMS with my parents and brother.

Electric power returned by midday but there was no cable TV. My source of information was the Internet. I was able to track the path of the typhoon and found out that it would pass by area late in the afternoon.

By mid afternoon, the worst of the typhoon was upon us. Winds buffeted the trees in the yard, tearing off some the branches. A bird's nest fell from one of the trees, the poor little chicks died when they hit the concrete.

Surprisingly, the electric power didn't go off. Cable TV was even restored even as the typhoon unleashes its fury on our area. After a couple of hours, the winds and rains calmed down.

TV news started broadcasting all the horrific images of devastation in the other provinces of the country. Scores died in the wake of the typhoon. Near where I was at, there was a news of a couple getting electrocuted because floodwaters reached their electrical outlets before they got to higher grounds.

The worst story was that of the ship that capsized in the middle of the typhoon due to huge waves hitting it. Some 800 souls were aboard that ship and only it was only the day after that reports of survivors, only 20 at first and now 50, came out.

The name Frank has just been removed from the list of typhoon names in the country because of its strength and the devastation it wrought.