Devastation Left by Typhoon Odette

Last week was a very busy week for me that I barely had time to read the news.

At the back of my mind, I knew there was an incoming typhoon, that it would probably be worse than usual, and that perhaps I should charge my power bank.

When I couldn’t find it, I put aside any thoughts of having a fully charged power bank on standby and went about my day like normal - beating deadlines, researching, reading, writing.

I mean, what’s the worse that could happen, right? We had typhoon warnings just as bad before, and it always turned out okay - nothing more than a day with no power, no water at worst, and intermittent Internet connection.

Little did we know that this time, it would be different - way different.

It was Thursday evening, and I had already informed my bosses that I may not be able to go online in the next few hours due to Typhoon Odette.

My mom got some groceries earlier, so I knew we have food in stock as well.

Both my phone and laptop were fully charged so my worst-case scenario at that time was that I would be connecting via data to do any urgent tasks for work.

With those covered, I settled in just as the power went out and the world went dark.

The Typhoon

It had already been raining incessantly all throughout the day, but it was nothing out of the ordinary in terms of how bad it was at first.

Things got serious as evening came, and the power went out.

By 8:00 PM, shit started to hit the fan and the realization that I could be facing the worst typhoon I’ve ever experienced in my life started to dawn on me.

I was starting to panic really bad, but there’s nothing like the reality of seeing your loved ones needing help to snap you back.

By this time, the rain and the wind had intensified so bad that our windows rattled like there were about to shatter into a million pieces.

The back portion of our house where eight of our dogs stay started to leak everywhere, and we had to get them to the other side, where it was relatively dry.

With the world dark as hell, water everywhere that could make you slip and fall, and the wind threatening to break our windows, it was honestly terrifying and made transferring several scared dogs, half of which are adults, very challenging.

Once we got them secured, we went to the front of our house to secure our other four dogs.

They usually sleep in their crates and the moment I opened our front door, I could see that some of the empty crates that we had lying around were already flying around - literally. I thought would only see this kind of scene in movies but apparently not.

That was how strong and scary the wind was and with debris flying everywhere that could cut or injure anyone in their way, it was insane.

My brother and I immediately started dragging the crates with our dogs inside one by one and secured them in our garage, which was closed and dry, thankfully.

After that, we immediately went back into our house as the electricity post right outside our gate went down. No joke, you could actually see the gust of wind through the rain and it was scary and loud AF.

After all our dogs were secured, our windows upstairs went crazy as the wind ripped them open to the point that their locks were broken.

We had to tie them close with ropes and cable ties just to keep them that way and prevent the rainwater from coming in.

Unfortunately, the rain started to get inside my brother’s room too because of the direction of his windows, and he had to transfer his stuff downstairs.

My room, which I just had renovated, suffered too as rainwater started to leak in through my newly installed windows. I’m just thankful they didn’t break and the tree right outside my room stood its ground despite its branches breaking off.

Several times I would press my face against the window (stupid idea, I know) to see how bad the winds were thrashing the trees, and it was unlike anything I have seen before. In between the running around trying to keep things together, I would find myself in bed just listening to the rain and the wind and praying that it would be over soon.

All throughout, we were using flashlights and candles, which made navigating everything 10x harder.

The Morning After

I woke up to my mom calling me to help out with the dogs. I had fallen asleep at around 1:00 AM despite my resolve to stay up throughout the typhoon.

Maybe it was the stress or the exhaustion, but I amazingly slept pretty well. Apparently, I was already out like a light when rainwater started to leak upstairs right from our terrace, and my brother and dad had to stop it.

By 7:00 AM, I went out of the house to a whole different world. I don’t have that many “before” images, but I’ll let these images speak for themselves.

As you can see, power lines are down and with them went our electricity, data connectivity, or any way to go online.

We also didn’t have water for a while, but at least that came back by late morning. A lot of people from farther away still don’t have water until now, two days later, so we definitely got lucky.

Based on rough (very) estimates, it would take about two to three months for things to be completely restored to normal. That means we’ll be spending Christmas and New Year without electricity and no way to contact our loved ones.

Since I work remotely and need to be online most of the time, I’m also looking at going to the city every weekday. 😔 To make it worse, if I go home over the weekend, I would go completely offline with no means of checking last-minute tasks. That worries me a lot. 😢

*Wrote this on mobile. Battery about to die. No network most places as well.