Typhoon Milenyo Aftermath:Deaths due to Fallen billboards, trees and electric poles
Note: View My PHOTO GALLERY of Typhoon Milenyo (international codename Typhoon Xangsane)
At 8:30 am EDSA, on the way to pick up my daughters
(Enlarge) The heavy rains woke me up and my thoughts turned to my daughters holed up in their dorm in Quezon City. Butch and I quickly turned on our TV sets and heard that “typhoon Milenyo” would be the strongest to hit Manila in 11 years. The typhoon was expected to arrive at 12 noon. It was 6:00 AM and the perfect time pick to them up in Quezon City. Feeling worried over their safety, my main concern was to bring them over to our home in Makati City knowing they would be safe with us. On the way to my daughters’ dorm in Katipunan Avenue, the empty trusses along EDSA is a rare sight to behold. I thought, “good thing. it’ll prevent accidents“. On the way home, we passed along C-5. Ah, it’s an amazing treat to see the landscape devoid of the tarpaulins click here.
At 11:00 AM, at our house in Makati City just before Typhoon Milenyo
(Enlarge) A few leaves are strewn all over the front lawn. We prepared for the inevitable wrath of Typhoon Milenyo and shut all the doors and windows. The electricity had already been cut at 9:00 AM. Shortly after 12:00 noon, I heard metal screeching and crunching somewhere. I thought “uh-oh there goes my roof!” I expected a gush of water to pour down our ceiling. Looking out of the window, a gigantic branch from the tree outside suddenly looms outside our living room window. The branch broke from the tree outside , landed on the fence, broke it and ended up on the lawn.
The fallen tree branch in our front lawn
(Enlarge ) It was a relief that it wasn’t our roof that got blown away. What could we do now? I knew there were more damage and injuries outside our village. We were grateful to God for the safety of our family, a strongly built home, ample food, fuel and water. The only other inconvenience was water dripping on L’s room. The strong winds blasted all the rain water towards the upper balcony, creating a pool of water which overflowed to L’s ceiling through a crack on the second floor balcony. Removing the flooded waters in the balcony was futile as the strong gust of wind literally blew us away to the wall. We ended up placing cardboards on the balcony floor so we could elevate the flood waters. I haven’t felt these strong winds in years. Although we had no power, we still had a gas range that would enable us to cook for a candle-lit dinner.
The aftermath at around 2:00 PM
The good old reliable radio was our only source of information and link to the outside world. No power. No internet. No TV. We heard that the southwest part of Metro Manila had a direct hit and sustained more damages. Makati City, our place of residence is one of these places. I immediately took photos of the typhoon Milenyo aftermath.
(enlarge) From the balcony, we noticed that the floodwaters are slowly rising due to the overflowing creek behind the village. 
(enlarge)
Wading through murky waters, I inspected the typhoon damage and quickly took photos worried that a tree branch might fly suddenly to my direction. Wow, the street looked like a war zone with all the fallen trees, poles, and rising floodwaters . I have never seen so much typhoon damage in all my 40 plus years.
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(Enlarge) A street in the neighborhood is strewn with uprooted trees and fallen electrical posts.
(enlarge) Look at this gigantic billboard that fell on a bus at the Magallanes interchange causing injuries and huge traffic jams to the commuters.
It’s about time that the ban on billboards be strictly enforced. Just looking at the latest casualties in this typhoon, a death or two has been caused by a fallen billboard. The driver of this van got killed by a giant billboard that fell on his van along EDSA corner Estrella St. The political will of our leaders only goes into action once disasters befall our countrymen. A Total Ban on Billboards must be implemented in congested areas of the metropolis. Will our government now act on this?
View complete Typhoon Milenyo photo gallery and Fallen Billboards. Other bloggers’ photo blog entries from San Pablo City (also here) and Naga City
*EDIT: Just got featured in Inquirer’s Bloggers chronicle typhoon’s fury in Metro Manila
– power got restored at 1:00 AM September 30
Technorati Tags: Typhoon Xangsane, typhoon Milenyo, Typhoon
This is about me ( a 
wow! wala palang sinabi yung devastation sa area namin. tsk tsk. makati was the worst hit ata among the metro manila cities.
wow – featured at Bloggers chronicle typhoon’s fury in Metro Manila
Nandito ako now sa Portsmouth, UK. Uuwi nako sa sabado, salamat sa kwento mo, grabe mga pictures mo, mejo worrying. Sana normal na ulit sa MetroManila pagdating ko sa Sunday.
Pls. don’t publish my name. Thanx ulit.
i also took shots of my adventures yesterday. typed my blog entry on my pda, ready na for uploading pag nagka-electricity sa bahay namin. goodluck kung kelan magka-ilaw. hehehe.
i’m blog hopping from an internet cafe… buti nakasingit ako sa mga teenagers na nagnenetwork gaming, almost all internet cafes are full of them. grrr.
@ralphot: yes southwest of manila was hardest hit
@chris- thanks for the tip
@emy- parang war zone tingnan. They say the billboards will take one week for it to be removed,
@moowagirl- these gamers should give way to internet users. Sobra naman silla. Am in starbucks here in pasong tamo…checking on my sites kasi until now no current
you guys take care. your family will be in my thoughts and prayers.
saw that this entry was featured on INQ.
@dexie – thanks for the prayers. I got surprised this entry was featured. It’s now a top story of the Inquirer online edition. Maybe because of the photos I took.
i experiencing the rattling of the roof and the gushing of the wind and water seeping through the smallest hole or crevice it can find. a am here at san pedro laguna. you goota see some parts here kasi talagang binaha sila.
Great pics and mention at PDI!
Would you believe we only got power back at 9pm this evening?
Call Centers were heavily impacted by this storm. It crumpled businesses and call volume was very low due to high absenteeism. I blogged a bit of what has happened in our center. I’m glad there were no casualties in our center.
Wow, at least you got some time and electricity to blog about the storm last Friday. We only got power here at home at around 3-4 am today, Sunday, so I only got to blog and upload pictures about the storm a while ago. :p
I was also in Makati that morning and saw how it devastated Makati. Congrats on being featured. It shows the efficiency of Blogs to spread some important information as well during calamities.
@eric- wow it took that long for power to be restored. Welcome back to the living .
@jeng- I think I saw some of the photos in a blog
@Jam- I thought call centers hired transportation to get the call center agents to their work.
@seav- I went to a wifi enabled coffee shop to blog. Power was restored two days afer
@ferdz- True, blogs get the personal account of those actually there nd the public want to read it,
Hi! I’ve read your story and I wanted to know more about your reactions regarding bagyong ‘Milenyo’….Hope you could post it before saturday…I’m a first year college student from the University of the Philippines- Los Baños. Thanks!
Waaahhhh…well….milenyo has brought a big realization to me! always be ready and still, be thankful!!for still having my life…whahahahah!!
*classmates- kht n bnha classrum ntin, I still thank each one of you for hepling me!!graveh……..
akala ko nga tatangayin ako ng whistling wind ng typhoon na yan eh…grabe and impact sa lugr sa amin sa makati!
Hi… can i copy ur pictures? because i need it for my project… please give me a response to make sure your giving me a permission to copy it.. thank you very much..
Hi! Great site, keep up the good work! rv trader
Does anyone know of a way to find out the owner of a cell phone if you know their number? I see many sites for reverse lookups for cell phones but they charge almost 100 bucks.
All of the free reverse phone number sites have a fee after you put in the phone number. Anywho.com or whitepages.com or any of that stuff does not work since you have to pay to get a report.
Are there any ACTUAL free ones out there?
hello maam noemi!!ur site is great!!!i was browsing the net hoping to see some pics taken during the milenyo typhoon last year(october is fast approaching and typhoons are here again) when the search results direct me to ur page..as i read ur blogs,i was inspired to write an article realted to the environment..and i do hope i can come out to a wonderful article soon…
maam, can i use some pics u’ve posted on your blogs?
thank you and God bless..
Hi.
Good design, who make it?