Pepeng’s Second Coming

-

Typhoon Pepeng, international code name “Parma,” hit the City of Pines TWICE. I was monitoring the super typhoon’s path via the feeds at the Baguio Weather page and was surprised to see that fabled U-TURN. First the winds were a category 4, which means over 215kph, then sunshine then steady rainfall, then Igme-like winds and rain.

Typhoon Igme hit us from June 28-29-30, 2004, just as I was closing down Freddie’s Billiards, and caused the last big damage that the city suffered. And the weather during the Philippines’ wet season has been pretty good since then until Typhoon Pepeng.

Pepeng was heading north and out of the country until winds coming from the northeast forced it westward and slowed the typhoon down because it was intent on going north and kept getting sidetracked. This is why Pepeng hit us a second time, and it hit us hard!

My area fared very well despite strong winds and rains brought by the “second coming” of Typhoon Pepeng. I suppose it is because I live and work in a really good neighborhood — with lots of water, gentle slopes, lots of trees.

Atenara House is in one of the areas designed for the 30,ooo residents the Americans originally planned the city for. My place is just off Leonard Wood Road, which is very familiar to regular visitors and a place tourists will certainly visit or pass through because it connects Session Road to Mines View Park, with all the major Baguio attractions along the way — Teachers Camp, Botanical Garden/Centennial Park, Wright Park, The Mansion.

Although internet signals just came back a few hours ago, we have had electricity and water throughout and no landslides nearby.

But unhampered migration to the City of Pines has caused this beautiful place to become overpopulated with folks erecting houses on public land that is not necessarily fit for residential purposes, sticking shanties on mountainsides, along riverbanks and beside canals. But we cannot blame them because the local government has allowed and even encouraged all these, especially in the 19 years after the great 1990 earthquake.

Areas That Were Hit

Some areas suffered a lot of damage, with more than 60 total casualties. City Camp, which used to be a lagoon and somehow was declared fit for residential purposes experienced severe flooding — as usual.

City Camp, which is right off Legarda Road and about 1 kilometer from the Baguio City Market is also where the mayor plans to build a permanent satellite market, borrowing Php250M which taxpayers will repay in 10-15 years if the deal pushes through. More than anything, they should rethink this location because flooding here is a recurring problem.

Benguet was hit hard, even its capital La Trinidad which is a fabulous priece of flat land, where more than 100 persons perished in landslides. The area called Longlong-Lamtang, that has a road connecting Baguio City to La Trinidad via Naguilian suffered landslides and I am not sure if the casualties here were credited to Baguio or to Benguet (Baguio is not a part of Benguet, although it is located entirely within the province).

And the television brings us news of a lot of devastation in the vast Cordillera mountains to the north and east of Baguio City, which is the administrative center of the Cordillera Adminsitrative Region. This is why all the news is datelined: Baguio but, honestly, the Summer Capital of the Philippines is not the one that needs the most help.

Baguio City is Temporarily Inaccessible

Although the skies are now clear and the weather is perfect, Baguio City right now is totally cut off from the rest of the Philippines because all access roads: Kennon Road, Marcos Highway, Naguilian Road and Halsema (Mountain Trail) are either being checked for safety or repaired. The effect of this would be that no supplies can go up and down except by airlift until one of the first three is opened.

I will update folks via GoBaguio! and Twitter the minute one of these roads open so please check these for updates.

Travel advisory: The Rosario bridge is down, suffering damage when one of its foundations gave way and they are working on a Bailey bridge for that section. This bridge is important because it connects Pangasinan to La Union, where Kennon, Marcos and Naguilian Roads have entry

Alternative route: Motorists can still access La Union and Baguio via Dagupan, San Fabian, Damortiz in Pangasinan, except that those area are still flooded as a write, although the flood waters there are already going down. Folks may reach MacArthur Highway via the Dagupan-Asingan road and turn right at Urdaneta City or proceed to Camiling and enter MacArthur in Tarlac City.

Tourists are stranded with all bus trips temporarily canceled so I see quite a lot of them walking around, basking in the bright sunshine.

No Vegetables for Manila

The Cordillera Region supplies 85% of the Philippines daily requirements of highland vegetables — lettuce, celery, potatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, etc. and while not all the crops were damaged, they cannot be transported to La Trinidad where Trading Post is located because Halsema Road is closed, and in turn, Baguio cannot send them down to customers in the lowlands, including Metro Manila.

In my house I have about 200 kilos of vegetables that I was trying to deliver to my Manila clients (am a small-time vegetable dealer of hotel-quality vegetables) and they are now — stuck here! So this carnivore has been eating veggies all weekend.

Baguio Evacuation and Relief Centers

Yesterday I watch President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced that the The Mansion is open as an evacuation center. News reports last night averred that about 16 families have availed of this rare chance to sleep in the official summer residence of the President of the Philippines. Other reports said that about 300 person are at The Mansion.

This morning I got a call from Marionne Molintas who informed me that Cafe by the Ruins, located right across Baguio City Hall is now running a soup kitchen so I will hie over there after publishing this post to bring them a whole lot of vegetables.

Of course the Department of Social Welfare and Development is now busy accepting relief goods, but hey, not to be callous or anything, Baguio City as the Ukay-Ukay Capital of the Philippines (ex-mayor Domogan’s words, not mine) is not lacking for a source of clothing.

But We Need Fuel & Food

Because we are now cut off, and folks have been “panic buying” for two weekends now (Pepeng hit us lightly at first on October 2 and hit us hard on October 7-8) so we will be needing food supplies. I heard a plane overhead finally today and am hoping that the supplies that 300,000 residents will need will be coming soon. Hey, by my estimate, about 50,000 of the population is composed of college students from the lowlands, whom we still have to feed. Since school is not yet out, they’re all still here!

By the way, Goldilocks and Red Ribbon are all out of stock, the groceries are fast running out, the restaurants have a lot of items out of stock by now, too and are waiting for supplies to reach us.

I suggest, that since the weather is fine, that people stop using their cars for a while and start walking around as much as possible to conserve on fuel.

Post Updates

I will be updating this post throughout the day, instead of updating the blog with short posts.

As I tweeted earlier:

• NFA says we have 52 days of rice left, with stocks expected to arrive soon so need to panic here.
• DTI says groceries have 2 weeks of supplies left, so folks should stop hoarding.
• Market organizations are monitoring prices of their members, say that there are a lot of vegetables and meats still.
• There’s a TV news report alleging that 75% of Baguio is prone to landslides. If this is true, what are we going to do about it? Government must really start on the Land Use plan (before Farinas starts giving them away to squatters). City Camp lagoon issues are recurring. This area may not be fit for habitation.
• Kennon Road will open at 5am tomorrow till noon for vehicles going down, and 12 noon to 6pm for vehicles coming up. And they kept saying Marcos Highway was more reliable…
• Fuel rationing going on. Tip: if you want to know which stations have gas supply, ask the taxi drivers lined up on Session Road.
• Naguilian road now open, too.  added 10/13/2009

I have tweeted more updates during typhoon Pepeng than all other previous tweets put together –

Follow updates for Baguio on Twitter.

Share on Facebook