Typhoon Rammasun
Also known as: Typhoon Glenda (PAGASA local name) · Typhoon 09W (Joint Typhoon Warning Center designation) · Typhoon Matmo (unrelated successor; common misattribution)
Definition
Typhoon Rammasun, locally named Typhoon Glenda, was a powerful July 2014 typhoon that battered Southern Luzon and Metro Manila. After crossing the Bicol region and Laguna de Bay, it passed directly over the capital region as a strong typhoon, felling thousands of trees and billboards and blacking out millions of homes. Rammasun was the first major storm to hit Metro Manila at typhoon strength in several years.
Identities
| Database | Identifier |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Typhoon Rammasun |
| Wikidata | Q17342662 |
| DBpedia | N/A |
Also Known As
- Typhoon Glenda (PAGASA local name)
- Typhoon 09W (Joint Typhoon Warning Center designation)
- Typhoon Matmo (unrelated successor; common misattribution)
Examples and Analogies
Rammasun demonstrated the capital’s vulnerability to a “direct-hit metro” scenario: like a bull passing through a china shop, the eyewall scraped across Metro Manila, toppling billboards that acted as sails. The storm’s Bicol-phase surge and wind damage in Albay recalled older Gulf-of-Lagonoy storms, while its Manila phase offered a preview of what a stronger Yolanda-type track through the metro would entail.
Usage Scenarios
Urban planners use Rammasun to justify billboard regulation, tree-management, and overhead-line hardening programs in the capital. Utilities study the event for sequential restoration of feeders serving hospitals and water pumping stations, and coastal municipalities in Batangas and Cavite reference its surge for setting construction setbacks.
Strategies
Strategies included pre-emptive evacuation of more than half a million people across Bicol, Southern Tagalog, and Metro Manila; deliberate field trips and class suspensions days ahead; and billboards stripped or rolled down by order of local governments. Post-storm, agencies prioritized clearing trunk roads within 24 hours to restore logistics.
Security and Safety Measures
Signal No. 3 was raised over Metro Manila and nearby provinces before the eyewall arrived; sea and air travel were suspended, stranding passengers at ports. Power distributors executed protective shutdowns, and barangay tanods patrolled evacuated neighborhoods, while the Coast Guard rescued dozens from stranded vessels and capsized bancas.
Historical Context
Rammasun formed east of the Philippines in mid-July 2014, crossed Luzon on 15-16 July, later struck Hainan and northern Vietnam, and dissipated over Yunnan. It killed around one hundred people in the Philippines and cut power to nearly the whole of Metro Manila and adjacent provinces, with damage to agriculture and infrastructure estimated in the tens of billions of pesos.
Challenges and Controversies
Controversy flared over billboard safety after huge steel frames collapsed along EDSA, renewing calls for stricter structural review that had languished since earlier storms. Complaints also targeted the week-long outages in some areas and the slow release of emergency funds to Bicol farmers whose abaca and coconut stands were flattened.
Related Topic
Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan, 2013)