LAOAG CITY—While expecting for a super typhoon, Lyndon Madrid woke up early on Wednesday and harvested green papayas and squash flowers from his farm in the farming village of Bungcag, Dingras, Ilocos Norte, just a kilometer away from his residence.
Priced at PHP15 per kilo for green papaya and PHP5 per small bundle of squash flowers, Madrid said “it pays to be alert than sorry.”
As an active participant of a government radio school-on-the-air program for farmers, he learned that an incoming super typhoon, named “Mangkhut’, is expected to hit northern Luzon.
While the sun is still up, he then alerted his fellow farmers in the village to harvest whatever they can save before the typhoon hit this northern part of the country on Friday, September 14.
Based on U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the weather bureau said the tropical cyclone is currently packing maximum sustained winds of 259 kilometers per hour with gusts reaching almost 315 kph.
Meanwhile, Provincial Agriculturist Norma Lagmay has advised farmers to “make use of all possible human and machine power” to minimize damages caused by typhoon.
“Some rice fields in the eastern part of the province are ready for harvest but most parts are still on their vegetative stage.
As a precautionary measure, we should harvest early and dry them,” Lagmay said Wednesday.
The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council convened a meeting on Wednesday morning in preparation for the incoming typhoon. Members of the search and rescue operation from the provincial and municipal levels had also started their inventory of equipment. (Leilanie Adriano/PNA)
