Super Typhoon Megi Leaves the Philippines!

Super typhoon Megi is leaving the Philippines this Tuesday morning as I write this. At last count, four people had lost their lives,  one poor man drowning as he rescued  his carabao (water buffalo) from a raging river and then drowned. Other victims were killed due to the result of damage caused by the extremely strong sustained winds of 225km/h (140 mph) and gusts of up to 260km/h (162 mph.) Some reports had the typhoon clocked at 250 mph before it hit landfall and pronounced it one of the worst storms thus far this year in the world.

The Philippine weather service did a superb job of getting early warnings out about Megi (named Typhoon Juan in the Philippines), since  I’m sure many did not want to lose their jobs as one of their co-workers had this summer.  The former head of the weather bureau was sacked by President Benigno Aquino this July after he failed to predict a typhoon which unexpectedly changed course and smashed into Manila  killing more than 100 people.

Trees were uprooted, metal and thatched roofs blown off, and tricycles blown over. Television’s  24 Oras news report kept repeating the same footage over and over of an unoccupied tricycle getting rolled over by the strong winds, that I finally flipped stations. Heavy rains also came down (we received some extremely torrential downpours this morning but little wind in Guimaras), and forecasters were happy for the rain since it was filling up dams that had been at low levels since the drought the Philippines went through earlier this year. However, the Philippines is the world’s biggest rice importer, and damage from the typhoon could see it buy more than had been expected for 2011, which could push up international prices, that according to a report on BBC News online.

Kudos to PASGA,  the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, & Astronomical Services Administration, for a job well done, and to the local governmental agencies that prepared the country for this super typhoon. Hopefully, this will be the last typhoon to ravage the Philippines  this season, and give the areas hit by this storm a chance to recover.