Pablo (Honey)

MILD CONCUSSION Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) with minor setbacks

Pablo was running amok outside my house, but unlike his ominous relative a year ago, he was relatively milder. When he started to unleash his windy protestations on my front yard at around 6 in the morning, I was still in my bed trying to weigh things whether I am going to get out and confront him or to remain dead within my cold sheets and hide, but it was a dilemma that needed no further decision, as his anger came rushing in immediately after his stormy arrival. How I wish I could cool him off, except of course, that Pablo was not my disgruntled landlord, but a super typhoon.

Typhoon Bopha (Pablo), as its international name goes, started doing its rounds in the country Sunday evening (December 2), but was felt a day after when it hit the seaside region of Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur. At that time though, it was already gloomy in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, prompting some of us in the office to go home early as a precautionary measure, owing perhaps to their experience of Sendong where a severe lashing of winds compelled some my colleagues to stay inside the office until late evening before they could even go home. 

Classes on all levels had already been suspended, employees from government agencies were on their way homes, and a better part of the private sector, including business establishments, had temporarily been closed, but most houses, including mine, were on red alert, as the prospect of some strong, heavy winds and the thought of a severe flood gripped every household like some sort of a plague. It was so natural to think about those things at that time, considering the damage brought about by Sendong; that Pablo seemed like an impending doom, a recurring nightmare. And when it started to rain that afternoon (December 3), since its forecast had Pablo hitting landfall the following day (December 4), I thought then it’s going to be a very long night for us.

It was my plan actually not to sleep that night. I got curious about Pablo developing into a power typhoon up until dawn. I wanted to monitor the phenomenon that they have dubbed as early as December 2 as an even stronger typhoon than Sendong. Sendong was so strong, no doubt about that. I even witnessed the uprooting of some sturdy trees the morning after that devastating typhoon, and leading to an even more damning result in Cagayan as floodwaters took the lives of many of its residents. But to dub Pablo stronger than its predecessor seemed like a tall order to the paranoids and a curious bet to the adventurous. However, as soon I got tired waiting for its debilitating development and its supposed acceleration, I decided to hit the sack instead. If Pablo comes in stronger and more forceful than Sendong, then he should be able to wake me up tomorrow with a bang.

As it turned out, Pablo was a bit of a fluke, at least in the Agusan del Sur area. I woke up not with the expected windy noise and heavy downpour, but from a whisper from my wife, though outside the scene had already painted a dark and sinister atmosphere, pretty much like Hard Rain, an episode in the online game Left 4 Dead. But by six in the morning, the supposed heavy gushing of winds passed through the region, which I thought was the high point of the typhoon in the Agusan del Sur area. And the anticipated heavy downpour was anything but forceful, erratic even, which did not create a whole lot of flood problems in the Agusan as did Sendong. Electricity was cut off intentionally due to previous typhoon short circuits. Pablo, however, did not live up to its supposed superiority over Sendong, but it did wreck some havoc somewhere else.

Although Pablo has had a relatively minor destruction in the Agusan del Sur area, some of the towns in the region were not too fortunate. Somebody texted me that the town of Rosario, which had its own share of Sendong send off a year ago, was again basking on flood waters, particularly on its rice fields, and street posts lining in quandary right after Pablo’s onslaught; as was Bayugan City, which saw some of its residents, especially those living beside the riverbanks, evacuating from its rising waters. And Bunawan, with the rising of the Omayam river. The usual suspects of Sta. Ana, Pisaan, Hubang and Barangays 1 and 3 of San Francisco, barangays known in the region to have been prone to inundation, has been relatively quiet in terms of flood incidents. But because there was no electricity since early morning, and since there were no replies from my acquaintances living on those areas, I could not possibly tell exactly what happened in those barangays.

And as soon as Pablo calmed down after lunch, I immediately went to Poblacion San Francisco to see the extent of damages (if indeed there was) Pablo brought about as it faintly passed through the region that morning. My curiosity enabled me to hurry outside the house to see how the San Francisco thoroughfare would look like after a “disappointing typhoon”. Unlike Sendong where San Francisco looked like it had gone through a severe breaching, Pablo’s exploits really looked more like an isolated psychosomatic episode. Not that I wanted Pablo to be stronger or more sinister than its counterpart, but that it had sapped my energy, what with all the anticipation the night before and that recurring hubbub of being a super typhoon, without it even having (sadism aside) a physical effect on me. Somehow it was all Jack in the Box.

Maybe because everybody was prepared. Even a Mormon church at the outskirts of San Francisco was sheltering a handful of evacuees, quite possibly from those isolated areas. At least a dozen police officers I saw were on their way east, probably going to Barobo, a coastal town in Surigao del Sur, to assist somehow these relief efforts, courtesy of some of our local government units. International non-government agencies like the Oxfam Mindanao Programme, notwithstanding, even joined in the efforts of monitoring the said affected areas of the region to ease out somehow the burden of such a calamity. And I was amazed still, though I had anticipated it, when I went to the San Francisco gymnasium, the usual site for flood and typhoon victims, and saw that it was empty of evacuees, a sign that Pablo had just a minor effect in the municipality.  

But a typhoon is a typhoon, regardless of its degree of difficulty or wind velocity. It may have had a minor cut in the San Fancisco area, but in other areas though Pablo was a sure whiplash. Residents in Compostela Valley, particularly in some areas in New Bataan and Maragusan, saw themselves like flotsams on a tide of rising waters. In a region prone to man-made disasters such as its infamous landslides and flash floods, the possibility of an even greater damage might be too costly to consider. Up north, Surigao has already declared a state of calamity within its area of responsibility, again due to the distressing results of Pablo, where it first lashed its angry tail in Hinatuan, a town, until now, some people believed, is still recovering from the effects of Sendong.        

At least, I went home relieved, but disappointed at some point. People living in San Francisco said that typhoons are a rarity if not non-existent in this region ever since. And now that Pablo has succeeded Sendong in giving them a taste of what it’s like to experience what was supposed to be a super typhoon in Pablo, they have already accepted it like it will happen again, as witnessed by their preparation for Pablo. December is the date, and that would mean another year. Like a honeycomb to a bee, it would take some time before we could taste again its bittersweet drop. Fortunately for us though, Pablo’s arrival in San Francisco seemed like honey instead of a sting.

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