Typhoons of yore

The tragedy of Yolanda is hard to take in and we all hope for the best for those still out of reach. In our lifetimes, we’ve not witnessed anything stronger or more devastating.

I remember that Yoling in the early 1970s was a terrible experience. It passed over Metro Manila and I witnessed a neighbor’s roof fly off in the wind. In another strong typhoon in the late ‘70s, I was foolhardy enough to try to go to work the morning of the typhoon. Cruising cautiously on EDSA because of the howling wind and rain, I stepped suddenly on the brake as a whole structure of wood and galvanized iron flew across the highway right in front of me. I immediately turned around and went home.

Typhoons have been with us for eons. They were constant in their ferocity and habits until recently because of climate change and the fact that there are over 90 million more of us in the way.

Reports from a hundred years ago show how fearsome they were back then. I quote from a description in a book published in 1900 called History and Description of Our Philippine Wonderland.

The book was put together by E. Hannaford and published in Springfield, Ohio. The section on “Monsoons and Typhoons” gives us an idea of how these phenomena were viewed and experienced then, and how much they’ve changed.

 â€œThese terms (monsoons and typhoons) often confound American readers… Monsoons are among the regular and beneficent economies of nature. Typhoons are occasional and destructive. Think of the steady, complexion-bronzing breezes of Kansas, then of tornadoes of the same section, and one can get a good suggestion of the contrast between a monsoon and a typhoon.”

The author continues after a lengthy exposition on monsoons, into typhoons, and some surprising facts from their era, “Typhoons never reach as far south as Iloilo, in Panay, and are rare visitants below Luzon. On the latter island, and in the northern part of the China Sea, a typhoon is liable to strike almost anywhere, at anytime between May and November, but more especially during July, August and September. The worst time of all is at the breaking of the summer (southwest) monsoon.”

Hannaford gives examples, “On Sept. 27,1865, a typhoon in Manila Bay drove 20 vessels ashore, and did great damage to the city. The Manila typhoon of Oct. 30, 1875 killed 250 persons and destroyed about four thousand homes …that of Sept. 29, 1890 demolished a large part of the …jetty, built to protect the harbor at the mouth of the Pasig River.”

He noted, “These tempests do immense damage to growing crops, and on the water the dangerously wrench and hammer the strongest steamer. Typhoons have two motions—one revolving, the other progressive; but comparing them with our Western tornadoes, the former motion has a vastly wider sweep and the latter is slow. The wider the sweep the less their severity, except at the very center.”

Continuing on the subject of typhoons, “They have been known to last 10 hours, but their usual duration is much less. The same atmospheric symptoms, the same rise in the thermometer and ominous drop of the barometer, precede typhoons as precede American tornadoes.”

The author points out,  “Under the Spanish regime there were no signal service stations in the Philippines, but the Jesuit fathers in the observatory in Manila, by running up their typhoon signals and cabling warnings to Hong Kong, have saved millions in property and many lives.”

Describing a typical typhoon, “Mow the day grows dim, the sky overcast with a livid yellow haze. The breeze dies entirely away. The air is sweltering hot and almost suffocating in its closeness. A silent, dreadful suspense broods over everything. The storm comes slowly, rising by degrees. Its full strength is announced by gusts of dust-laden air. By and by its awful force slackens, though the downpour continues; at the very center, the picot, of the storm there is a lull. But the pivot is moving onward like the peg of an erratic top. The storm is renewed in all its fury. When it slackens again it is for good. The sun bursts forth and shines on a scene of universal desolation and water soaked ruin.”

Hannaford also recounts two overlapping calamities, “In 1882, during a cholera epidemic, a typhoon of not extreme severity visited Manila, carried off the metal roofs of nearly a hundred houses, killing a few people, including a Chinaman who had his head cut off by a piece of corrugated ironwork that was flying through the air; strange to say the epidemic ceased within 48 hours.”

Typhoon accounts give us a déjà vu of death and destruction escalating over the last century. It is time we acknowledged the rapidity of this escalation in terms of violent force, people put a risk, and the mayhem that ensues.

On an important note: In the last week, the professional associations of design professionals—the Philippine Institute of Landscape Architects (PALA), the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners (PIEP), the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) and the Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA) have been meeting and organizing themselves to offer assistance in rehabilitation and rebuilding.

The running current among all the organizations is that we must rebuild, but in a better and more sustainable way; learning from the lessons of calamities of the past. There lies before us, they all seem to say, an opportunity to create more resilient and sustainable communities, towns, cities and regions.

I do hope that we all find concrete ways to implement more sensitive and inclusive plans, get all stakeholders to participate, and convince government to support (and fund) initiatives that are necessarily much longer and larger in scope of implementation and outlook than just the usual band-aid solutions to recurring disasters.

* * *

Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.