here comes the hammer (again)

What is SW doing today? SW is SHITTING himself. Why? Because of Typhoon Durian (that’s the International name; the Philippine name is Reming, but “Durian” is more appropriate – more so than “Wendy” or “Kevin”, at least) is heading straight for SW’s hometown, Los Baños. A couple of months ago, Milenyo (Xangsane) whacked heartily into LB and this was the result. Reming is currently rather larger than Milenyo, currently packing winds of up to 230km/h. It’s predicted to hit LB sometime tomorrow (Friday) morning. There was something sort of cool and exciting about experiencing a typhoon (my first) in September (until you realise that everything’s been fucked up and lots or people have lost lives/homes/roofs/etc). But one was enough – REALLY not looking forward to this one if it continues on its merry way…

I wrote the above a few hours ago. It’s now just gone 2.30pm and the update as of 11am was that it had intensified back up to a maximum 250km/hr category 5 (top category) “super typhoon”. This note from the Typhoon2000 website was particularly encouraging:

“THIS IS AN EXTEMELY CATASTROPHIC TYPHOON...PAGASA Virac has recorded wind gusts of 265 km/hr...All interests in the Northern Samar, Bicol Region & Quezon Provinces should closely monitor the progress of this extremely dangerous typhoon.”

Here's a nice shot of Durian off the east of the Philippines, taken yesterday:

(Got this from Wikipedia -- an image taken by the US Naval Research Laboratory.)

Work has just been suspended for the rest of the day. Were it not a public holiday tomorrow, I guess it would be cancelled tomorrow too. I’ve cashed a cheque with the work cashier (when I drove into work at lunch time – worked from home this morning – there were large queues forming at the ATMs) and filled up with petrol. Am planning to get some work done now and head back for dinner or if the wind starts getting fierce (it’s been steadily increasing all day).

ALL GOOD FUN.

Stay tuned…