The next morning Maria and I drove down through the town to see the effects of the typhoon. Three trees were uprooted in our own garden, and across the street a house was flattened out. Groups of Filipinos stood here and there talking and gesticulating in their usual manner, but nobody seemed unduly excited. We saw many houses unroofed, and once in a while we met a native with a piece of nipa or tin roofing balanced on his head, quietly carrying it back where it belonged.

We drove down through the Escolta and into the crowded Tondo district beyond, and there we suddenly found ourselves hub-deep in a flood. The below-the-sea-level quarters were under several feet of water, and we got a sudden revelation as to why all the nipa houses are built on such high and unsightly stilts. Crowds of Filipinos were paddling through the flood, most of them carrying some part of a house, or other belonging, and nearly all of them playing and splashing like pleased children. Bancas ⁠—long canoes from the river⁠—were plying from house to house as if it were an everyday affair and conditions were quite normal.