The Typhoon Ompong Aftermath : Where's our mango tree gone?

What can a 250kph wind do?

The whole country was dreading its' arrival and preparations, suspension of classes, work occured days before it landed. From the news, it was to be a 250kph, slow-moving wind. Where we are in the Northern Philippines, we were directly on its' path, but unfortunately up North, in Batanes, the EYE fell directly on them. For the Ilocos Province, ours was merely a Signal #4.

In my naivete, I thought there were only 3 signals in a storm.

The typhoon landed on the early evening of the 14th. My mom's room was located on the top floor of the hospital and this can be an issue whenever roofs start flying off, which fortunately the main building did not lose any roofing that night. But with all the clangings and bangings somewhere in the top floor, something will gonna give way at some point. All windows were checked room to room by personnels earlier that evening and through the windows, the howlings and whistlings of the wind were the noticeable sounds from our room. Along the corridor was a different matter.

As the hospital's electricity power came back easily each time it got cut-off, a longer duration prompted the next of kins to slowly come out from their rooms. The patients slept, the rest were wide awake. Better to be ready for anything ie. evacuation or something. It was only in the morning that we've seen some damages for although there was a respite from the wind, it resumed soon after.

Less rain with high and low wind

People expected lots of water, typhoon Ompong didn't bring much which was great. It's wind danced the night away and again most of the following day. I saw a roof flying to the fields, with a couple missing from a lower building, the assumptions were it came from there. The neighbouring garage station also lost a few. Funny enough, a tiny hut along the fields was intact in the morning but came the afternoon, part of its' roof started flapping.

The view from our room on the 15th.

A nearer shot on the 16th.

Typhoon Ompong' backside we saw Saturday night, come Sunday was all serene and calm and the sun started to peep through. Along the fields, there's that air freshness one can get after a typhoon or from a normal rain. Walking through along the fields was devastating by just looking at the ruined rice grains. According to the farmers we saw there, those that still have not started forming grains fared better. They have no option now than continue as they were as there might still be a chance of harvesting a fourth of those or make hay.

There is a discoloration that tell farmers that there won't be any harvest...the tip get whitish in color, left alone, they will blackened in color. Grains that have formed will become flat come harvest. And those that remained green to yellowish will reach maturity.

These have not started to form so they will make it. Looking around, there were about 3 or 4 plots that have harvested prior to the typhoon. They made it alright.

Nearer to home

Our family back home couldn't travel for the duration of the typoon because of the wind but came Saturday, news has reached us of toppled trees in our backyard. Neighbours too have their roofs disappearing upon waking up in the morning.

All images from here on are mine, taken with my Samsung Galaxy S7.

Let me show you our backyard

Our mango tree gone leaving just the cotton fruit tree.

This one here bears the sweetest mangoes, already lying on the ground after another typhoon ages ago, now uprooted and needed to be cut down.

To the right is our frangipani tree with our neighbours' house in the background.

We lost a couple of mango trees, where one of them usually gives us a lot of harvest of sweet native mangoes, whose roots we depend on each time there's flooding in our neighbourhood. Perhaps we have a couple of seedlings lying around. Or start planting mangroves all over town.

Disclaimer : the rest of the images are from @idamagbag