After the winds had died down yesterday, my sister and I surveyed the damage while we tidied our yard. Our neighbor had their roof torn and blown away while another’s windows were smashed. A tree fell on my sister’s Toyota parked outside and we still couldn’t tell the extent of the damage.

I started cleaning up my laundry area and my immediate vicinity at 6 am so my path is clearer when I bring up water. We rummaged through own own refrigerators for foodstuff that we needed to consume. My sister and I drove out of the university campus to fetch washing up water from my brother’s house and to check up on his family since my bro’s in Australia in the meantime. We also bought drinking water from refilling stations that had water service and bought canned goods (for my mom’s household). It seemed like everybody is doing the same so there was a gridlock of cars up and about.

In that hour of driving around, we were able to charge our phones and at the same time saw the extent of the damage c/o Kristine. Huge trees were uprooted, a local mall torn apart, broken glass windows and shop fronts, downed huge electrical posts and snapped electrical/fiberoptic wires. Hungry students were spilling from all over. Imagine being locked up in your dorm for 2 days without provisions since you were dependent on the eateries around you… 🥺 Poor kids.

When we got home, my other sister was able to run our power generator with the help of the utility guy of our neighboring church. This is why I’m able to post, we finally have internet, albeit for a few hours only.

Grilled the yellowfin tuna jaw that’s best for sinigang and grilling and some skewered pork barbecue.

Here we are, at the hospital to nebulize Twin A. She has an asthma attack and couldn’t breathe. We can’t run the power generator at 2:30 am to do that. Besides, I don’t know how to run that thing.

This event justifies the possible purchase of the expensive Bluetti or Ecoflow portable solar/power storage combo. 😬

The thing that I’ve been dreading has finally come. I need to clean my refrigerator. 😬

It’s not that bad as I had feared. I had been eating down the contents of my fridge for days now leading to the typhoon touchdown. The only thing that smelled was kimchi and I was able to get rid of the smell by spraying it with Human Nature’s kitchen spray.

I’ll tackle the freezer later after I buy an ice box and lots of ice.

Still no power. Our power genset is just enough for charging phones, laptops, the water pump, and one or two electric fans. Refrigerators are power hogs.

I am so hankering now for the on-grid/off-grid rooftop solar power setup that I had been eyeing. It will set me back by PHP 300k-PHP 500k, depending on the kW.

A lot of the trees around me have been shaken or uprooted by the typhoon. It’s kind of sunnier in my garden area now.