Steve & Marcia on the Rock: Corregidor Journal: Rain, rain, rain!

Starting on Sunday, September 15, we have had almost continuous rain for ten days straight. As of now, we have received over 4 feet (1.2 meters) of the wet stuff. Twice we’ve exceeded a foot in 24 hours. This has been the result of Tropical Storm/Typhoon Usadi (Odette here in the Philippines) which must have been a monster because the eye never got within 500 kilometers of us as best we can tell.

As you should know, the island of Corregidor is mostly hills and cliffs, so most of the water manages to get to the ocean rather quickly. But there are a few flat areas, man-made except for Bottomside, where it can take a while for the water to either soak in or find its way down the hill.

We went for a walk after one of the heavier rains and took a number of pictures that we want to share with you. We started at Middleside Barracks just above our house, went to the major gun batteries along the road, went down to Bottomside, and then finished around our house. We apologize that the pictures in some cases aren’t clearer, but they were taken during the rain. Also, there has been a humidity haze, almost a fog, which is easy to see with the naked eye but just make some of the pictures look fuzzy.

When you walk around the island after major rains you hear the rush of running water and see waterfalls that are only there for very brief periods, except in this case where it JUST WON’T STOP RAINING!. We jokingly refer to one such waterfall as Little Eaton Rapids, since the city of Eaton Rapids, Michigan, USA, where we lived before moving here, claims to be the only Eaton Rapids in the world. It has been running steadily since this period of rain began.

Little Eaton Rapids (left)

The gun pit below Battery Hearn is fuller than we have ever seen it. The swimming pool which was part of the Officer’s Club area at Topside has several feet of water in it. The most amazing for us was the completely flooded Battery Geary area. We saw the center crater filled before, during the typhoons of 2009, but the water was not nearly as deep as this rain produced.

So take a look at the pictures, and remember us here on Corregidor, especially those of you who live in areas that would never come close to having this much water in such a short time period.

Steve and Marcia on the Rock