First time ever to experience a tornado in Manila

14 August 2016

So we in Manila have had monsoon rains for the past 5 days (and counting).  It was just a regular Sunday, everyone was doing their own thing at home when the power went out.  Okay, that's fine, it'll come back in a second.  While waiting, it didn't come back on, and then I heard this whistling sound and I braced myself for some strong winds.  Never in my life did I expect a tornado to literally pass over our house.  I only found out that it was what it was when I went up to our roofdeck and saw the destruction.

First of all, I never expected to experience a tornado in Manila in my life.  The closest thing I've ever come to a tornado is the movie "Twister" which Dylan loves.  When I heard that roaring sound which seemed just right next to me (I was sitting at my computer table with an airwell beside me which probably amplified the sound), I was freaked out.  It was like a freaking train coming at me.  I couldn't see anything from my vantage point which I think was better because I would probably be more scared!  I only had the roaring thunder in my ears, the sound of breaking glass, the sound of something strong hitting the floor of the roofdeck, the screech of metal and the honking of cars outside to fuel my imagination.  Believe me, I hung onto my computer table out of fear, but in hindsight, that wouldn't really have helped.

Dana was in her bedroom on the third floor of the house and she saw the swirling winds and was too mesmerized by the flying debris to actually take a video.  I feared for her actually because I thought that the huge windows in her room were the ones that I heard breaking.    Funny, Dylan slept through it all.

When the noise died down, I immediately sprinted for the upper floors, saw Dana was okay and we both headed to the roofdeck.  I now knew that the glass I heard breaking was from one of our window panes.  I had to temporarily put on a plastic sheet to prevent the rain from coming in.  This pane slammed into the wall, shattering almost all of the glass.  I'm surprised it didn't break off at the hinge!

When I stepped onto the roofdeck, my jaw dropped!  Our neighbor's roof was gone! As in GONE!!  My suspicion was thus confirmed.  No wind could possibly rip that roof open except for a freaking tornado. Pieces of the sheet metal were found in another neighbor's roof.  They didn't even know that their house was wrecked until we signaled to them (they were watching the commotion on the ground).

We weren't unscathed either. Three of our lamp posts were uprooted, leaving only the wires.  Two of them were literally gone.  One fell onto the floor.  We couldn't even find the lamps!

 Looking over the roof, traffic was at a standstill.  Drivers were continually honking their vehicle horns.  Some probably saw the tornado pass them.  If you can zoom in on this picture, you'll see the lamp posts across the street were dislodged and the roofs of the nearby houses were torn apart too.  We called Meralco (electric power provider) to report the incident.  Later, fire trucks were on hand in case of fire because some of the power cables snapped.

Everyone was talking about it.  I was just glad that we didn't suffer anything worse.  It was only when the power was restored at around 11PM that I was able to view videos of the tornado when I got online. It was awesome!  It was powerful! It was terrifying!