Letter Re: Heavy Rainfall — Now Hitting The Fan in The Philippines

Dear JWR:
We have been hit with massive rain and flooding here in the metropolitan Manila area.

We are getting at times more than 1 inch rain per hour. We have received more rain than Typhoon Ondoy already. On August 7 we got 477mm rain in 22 hours.

About half the city is flooded and roads to my area are impassable. The gas stations are out of unleaded gas and only have 97 octane racing grade remaining as of last night.

I hit up the supermarket last night and it was busier than Christmas. I expect food shortages soon and we will be avoiding purchase of fresh and restaurant food from the stores for awhile because of wide spread contamination.

Electricity is on here but Internet went out last night. I still have data plan on the cell that works but very slow.

Our well water might be contaminated now. It has a bad smell. We switched to bottled water for drinking and the ceramic filter for wash water.

Local government weather forecasts are terribly inaccurate. We resorted to making a rain gauge from a water glass and ruler to know the rain fall rate here. I recorded about a inch per hour rain fall yesterday evening.

Flooding has damaged many of the flood sensors here also. The weather agencies are now unable to give accurate flooding estimates in parts of the city and the government flood web site crashed two days ago.

I am out of the flood zone, we have lots of food, back up generator, fuel and security. No worries here, just a involuntary vacation for my family.

I did get a case of pink eye however. Probably while at my shop that had run off water blowing in with the wind. The sides are only wire mesh.

Odd, however, it is not reported on the international news. – B.&L.M.