Clean up day

 The tropical storm hit south of here, with the eye going thru Bulacan.

The problem wasn't so much the winds (the last one was much much worse, with a lot of destruction from the winds) but the flooding.

The ground is still saturated from the previous typhoon, and there were people killed in landslides. Many evacuated, but the problem is that with crime being rampant, often one person stays at the house to prevent looting, and the cops etc. are too busy with saving folk to worry about theft.

A lot of the flooding and landslide are from deforestation, which is from illegal logging (corruption means you can give a small gift and the authorities will ignore what you are doing, and hey, the local folk need the jobs).

And some is from the rivers clogged with trash and also from silting (deforestation also leads to more soil being washed into rivers).

Full report on the Inquirer LINK

The electricity was turned off during the storm to prevent fires etc. and came back on in the early AM.

But I wonderedd why it was turned off early yesterday morning, and now we find the reason was that the men putting up the Christmas lights in the area of the Plaza had an accident and one man was electrocuted when something fell over and touched a live wire. Sigh. 

The house survived, but the temporary patches of the roof blew off, so the living room/dining room area was flooded, so I have the maid and her brother cleaning up that area now. I haven't seen Kuya to see if his apartment upstairs was damaged, but we are having visitors next week and the plan was that they would stay in his apartment and he would bed down in the office. Alas, thanks to the first storm blowing out his windows and now more rain damage, that plan has changed so we will probably bed them in the BNB area of the business compound (which hasn't been used thanks to covid ). So we will have to clean up that area later this week.

Undas is coming, (Nov 1, all Saints day) and although I did have Lolo's grave cleaned up, we will have to check if there is more debris blown into the area. However, the city said no cleaning until after Undas because the guys who collect the debris will be too busy cleaning up after the visits (where people bring flowers, light a candle, have a snack and sit around and talk...).

I doubt I will get there today with flowers, because the streets still are wet. So I will have to go tomorrow or Tuesday, which means fighting the crowds. Usually due to the crowds, you aren't allowed to drive to the actual grave site, but as an elder, usually they will let me in if I come in a tricycle. Elders are respected here, and I have the grey hair to prove my age.

I was going to link to a video, but hey you've seen this type of news film lots of time, and it really doesn't give you the idea of the reality.