Tropical Storm Chanchu
By: Lance Winslow
As we wait in the United States of America for our first Hurricane or Tropical Storm Alberto, we should also note that in the Asian Pacific they are already on storm number three; Tropical Storm Chanchu, which although not even a full Typhoon it still killed 32 people. Twenty-five of whom died when a Ferry Boat was sunk in high seas.
If this is any indication of the types of storms we shall see in the Western Hemisphere perhaps we should be getting very serious right about now as the 2006 Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season Approaches and threatens to take its first swing at the Caribbean Islands before migrating Northward into the Gulf of Mexico to threaten the United States?
Tropical Storm Chanchu killed people in Manila too and South down to the Negros Occidental Province and the ferry sank near Masbate Island. Although the Tropical Storm was not a Typhoon it devastated many towns and took out some 640 homes, which were said by residents to have floated away by the flooding deluge. Forty Thousand people evacuated and it is still extremely early in the season indeed.
The United States ought to take warning that just because the wind speeds maybe less the size of some of the potential storms this Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season make them just as deadly. More people die from drowning than from wind. So, consider this in 2006.
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