Hurricanes and Typhoons

I’m watching the news as Hurricane Irma plows its way through the Caribbean islands toward southern Florida.  Fifteen casualties are already reported; more are expected.  Last week it was Hurricane Harvey that dropped a U.S. record rainfall on Houston, causing over 30 deaths.

Fortunately, the U.S. has resources to prepare for such calamities.  We have dikes, dams, reservoirs, spillways, flood zones, warning systems, shelters, insurance programs, FEMA, and others.  But countries like the Philippines cannot afford such infrastructure and programs.  When a typhoon/hurricane hits, the human toll is much greater.

Each year, the Philippines is hit by about 6 typhoons.  (A hurricane originating in the Pacific Ocean is called a typhoon.)  Nearly each one results in deaths, ranging from a few into the thousands.  Houses are blown away, mudslides wash away villages, trees are toppled, and floods pour through rivers and lowlands.  

In 2008, Typhoon Frank killed 1,400 people, about half of them were here in Iloilo where rapid flood waters covered nearly half the city.  Two years earlier, Typhoon Reming killed an equal number of people.  Typhoon Winnie in 2004 killed 1,600.  In 2012, Typhoon Bopha killed 1,900.  But none of these typhoons come close to the loss of life and damage caused by the two worst typhoons to pound the Philippines.  I have a friend who lived through both.

Inday’s family lived in Ormoc when she was a girl.  Inday’s father was a business man that allowed him to live in a concrete house near the river.  When Typhoon Uring struck their island in 1991, torrents of water raced down the mountain flooding the city of Ormoc.  Inday’s family had to climb to the roof of their house.  As the waters rushed by, Inday remembers seeing her best friend struggling in the water, lifting her hand in the vain hope that someone might rescue her.  But she was washed out to sea and never found.  The death toll was more than 5,000.

A few years later, Inday’s family moved to Tacloban.  On November 8, 2013, the strongest typhoon/hurricane to ever strike land blew into Tacloban with wind gusts of up to 195 mph.  Thousands of houses were totally destroyed, infrastructure was wiped out for months, flood waters inundated the entire city.  Inday’s home was nearly a mile from the coast, but the waters rose several feet into their home, forcing Inday and her family to crawl onto the top shelves of their closet, expecting any moment for their roof to be blow off or the waters to continue rising.

But after two hours of terror, the water and wind began to recede.  The next day, desperate for food and water, Inday remembers climbing through the broken window of the grocery store, still flooded with water.  Stepping over dead bodies, she and others gathered what items they could find.  For several days, the streets were clogged with debris mingled with corpses.  Total casualties: 7,000 plus.

Aside from the physical destruction typhoons cause, there’s an enormous emotional cost for those who survive.  Inday still has nightmares of fierce winds and rising waters.  Several of her friends perished in the storms.  Uncontrollable fears often plague survivors whenever storms come.

In counseling Christians who experience such storms, we focus on resting in God as the source of our security, not this earth.  We comfort ourselves with the assurance of heaven.  We renew our trust in a loving God who can work all things for good, even tragedies, to conform us even more into the image and character of Jesus Christ.  He will always be our solid ground of faith no matter what this world throws at us.