Ketsana/Ondoy

I'm not sure if you watch the news, but if you do, you may or may not have heard about Typhoon Ondoy (or "Ketsana" if you like your storm code names a tad less smellier-sounding), which totally kicked my country's ass over the weekend. Nearly 400,000 people have been displaced by the typhoon, with the death toll at 100 and counting. 50 are still missing.

We lost our electricity sometime during the afternoon. That's when I went outside my house to take these photos. I would have gone a bit further from the house, but my wife made it real clear that if the flood didn't kill me, she would :-)

We only realized how bad it was the following day, when we decided we couldn't take any more of the shitty lack of power and went to a restaurant for some air-conditioning and Internetz. My sister showed us a video off of Facebook, where thick, muddy waters were pushing away SUVs like Hot Wheels. In some places, entire second floors were eaten up by the water, while survivors sat on their roofs awaiting rescue.

12 photos | 255 views