A tropical depression is an organized system of clouds and thunderstorms with a defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds of less than 62 km/h. There is no eye or spiral form, but it is already a low-pressure system. The practice in the Philippines is to name tropical depressions from its own naming convention when the depressions are within the Philippines’ area of responsibility. Other government weather services name a tropical storm after it reaches 62-117 km/h wind speed and develops a distinctive cyclonic shape – hence what you may have read about as Tropical Storm Ketsana is called Ondoy here (storms with winds over 118 km/h are called typhoons here and cyclones or hurricanes elsewhere).
Ondoy was on its way when I left for the weekend and it had passed when I came back; the taxi driver told me that there was flooding at the airport and that flights were cancelled but I had no idea of the extent of what happened until this morning. Metro Manila was hit with a month’s worth of rainfall in a day and some reports said that over 80 percent of the area was flooded. Last I read said that homes of 435,000 people were destroyed. There are people on their roofs waiting to be rescued, there are people without power. The floodwaters are receding but many areas are still underwater.
Where I live, work and travel in between, everything was fine. We’re on high ground. Some co-workers couldn’t make it in to the office, some were stranded over the weekend and unable to make it home. In general, traffic was very light. Schools were closed since they are being used for temporary evacuation shelters. The squatters for whom Habitat is building homes had their shanties washed away.
I feel overwhelmingly sad. I’m glad to be related to an agency that will help (and if you want to donate, please go to habitat.org.ph – the direct donation link from the web site should work now). It might be that the best thing I can do is carry on with my fund-raising efforts (nothing like a crisis to increase awareness and bring out the generosity in people!), but I am still sad and somewhat shaken.
Ketsana is expected to hit typhoon strength before making landfall near Hue, Vietnam. And here in the Philippines, Pepeng is on the way.
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I'm glad to see your post. I was thinking about you and was hoping you were ok. I figured if you didn't post for a few more days that it would be a bad sign.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I see you using km/h with ease. Are you fully comfortable with the metric system now? Does it feel awkward switching back when you're in the U.S.? Or are you "bi-unital" now?
I'm okay but as I find out more I am still sad. We were going to do a week-long build next week and the site is underwater and without electricity and the people for whom the homes are being built were living under the bridge and their homes were washed away.
ReplyDeleteYou called my bluff on the metric system. I took that info from our medical manual. Was thinking of converting into mph (for myself as much as for my readers) but I didn't; maybe now I will. I do all right at Celsius temperature vs. Fahrenheit (of course, it's just hot here and it almost doesn't really matter how hot) but not at other aspects of the metric system without conversion.
P.S. the first site I googled had the wind speed in knots! So I have to convert that too! Ha!
ReplyDeleteTropical depression - 33 kt - 38 mph - 62 km/h or less
ReplyDeleteTropical storm - 34-63 kt - 39-73 mph - 63-118 km/h
P.S. just found out the office is going to do a relief day on Thursday - glad I will be able to do something to help!
ReplyDeleteI would have thought after 2 1/2 years in Morocco that you'd be fluent in metric! Remember how in college they made us do all our engineering calculations in both to prepare us for the switch? Guess that never happened! I wish it did. I like metric much better, but am only semi-fluent in a few things, like some weights and volumes.
ReplyDeleteThose pictures are horrible. Such devastation.
I could measure a rug in metric but for cooking and baking I had my sister bring a measuring cup from home. I could use one here too - if I ever did any cooking...
ReplyDeleteThe pictures are indeed bad and the rescue/recovery continues - and then you read that the same typhoon hit Vietnam hard and that there were earthquakes and tsunamis in Samoa and Sumatra. And Typhoon Pepeng is on the way here.