What natural disasters have you experienced? How do you deal with the post-disaster panic period!?

View the original post on Musing.io

I experienced natural disasters a number of times, and the aftermath is really disheartening. It affected us badly that it even caused trauma.

1. Earthquake

I experienced a devastating earthquake in 1990, and I was 6 years old then. The intensity of the earthquake is over Magnitude 7.7, and it took minutes of shaking. I am young at that time that I have no idea what's happening. I wonder why the house is moving. My brothers, sister, and cousins are crying, so I just cried along with them. We are worried about our parents and other members of the family who's not yet at home. The earthquake killed thousands in those affected areas. My mother almost died as debris almost fell down on her. We haven't had electricity for weeks as electrical poles went down, no running water as the shaking broke the water pipes, roads are cracked, some buildings collapsed, and no classes for weeks. There has been strong after shocks even weeks after the earthquake. We experienced earthquakes years afterwards but gladly not as strong as this one.

2. Typhoons

Our country is prone to typhoons and experienced a handful of them. However, there are two typhoons which caused trauma in me that I always fear such destructive weather disturbance. First was in 1998 when this Typhoon locally named Gading struck our province. We've already had a week of rains which caused floods. It's unexpected as the country's weather bureau gave a Typhoon Signal #1, but the strength was believed to be Signal #3 or #4. It's an inaccurate forecast as people are not prepared on what happened. We've been through a lot of typhoons prior but not as intense as this one. I remember it's just raining that night but the winds became stronger by 11pm. It stopped a bit after few hours then it came back again after several minutes which is even stronger and caused havoc in our province. Many trees are uprooted even those old ones. Electrical poles collapsed as well. Roads were submerged by floodwaters. It took a few days until the water completely subsided. Numerous houses were extremely damaged, while others are completely destroyed. In fact, our house has suffered damages too. We haven't had electricity for more than a month.I can still imagine the fear while the winds are ravaging that night when typhoon is blowing off the town. It's like the wind is whistling.

In 2008, the same thing happened as Typhoom Cosme ravaged our province. This time, the weather bureau system inaccurately forecasted that the typhoon will make landfall in Ilocos Sur but it landed in our province. Few weeks without electricity again. Many houses were severely damaged, trees are uprooted, as well as electrical poles bowed down the streets.

3. Floods

We experience floods almost yearly but this year is the worst. In a calendar year, we are flooded about 4 times. There are times when the floodwater rises due to flashfloods and dam water releases. The flood this year scared me when I saw how the water level rises. In just 5 minutes, water level rose 3 inches.