Remembering Mount Pinatubo

I was in the US Air Force and stationed at Clark Air Base, Philippines, when on the early Wednesday morning of June 12, 1991, we were ordered to immediately evacuate. Following instructions from the US Armed Forces Far East Network (FEN) radio, my family, including my wife, Tess, our three small children and I, got in the car with a few personal items. We drove out fast from base housing and joined a long line of vehicles, all anxious to get away from a steaming volcano that was eerily visible in our rear-view mirror. That volcano is Mount Pinatubo and it was about to explode and change our lives forever.

Our convoy, moving at a snail’s pace, was escorted above by helicopters like hawks looking for prey. We were headed to our designated safe haven - Subic Naval Base, about 50 miles southwest. Both Clark and Subic were US overseas bases. After driving all day,  we arrived tired and haggard-looking at Subic. We registered and got assigned to stay with a Navy family in base housing.

It was late when we met our host family - a quiet Navy man with a pencil-thin mustache, his wife, two chatty teen-aged girls and a hyper-active 10-year old boy named Maloy. They were all very friendly, the women - inquisitive. Mattresses and blankets were already laid out in the living room for us. Exhausted, we went straight to bed.

Other than a looming volcano ready to blow up, the next two days were uneventful. Then, on Friday at about 10 AM, as we were driving to the beach, the sky became ominously dark. I pulled over, got out and looked up where everyone was looking - a huge ash cloud that covered half the sky! Shaped like an anvil with a plume, it looked strikingly beautiful. The cloud eventually dispersed, giving everyone a big sigh of relief. Little did we know that this was just a prelude to our nightmare.

That night we had a sumptuous potluck barbecue dinner with our host family. Convinced we’d seen the worst and should be going home soon, Tess and I started making plans for family activities. We went to bed with happy images of our kids playing in the park near a picnic table. We woke up Saturday mid-morning in pitch black darkness with sounds of raindrops coming from outside. The power was out. I lit up a candle, turned on FEN radio and learned that Mount Pinatubo had begun to erupt, wreaking havoc. We also learned that a typhoon was hours away and heading west toward the volcano! What are the odds? The rainbands ahead of the typhoon were already spreading the ash indiscriminately like a loose garden hose.

As the day progressed, the pitter-patter of rainfall got heavier. We ventured out into the carport and aimed our flashlights into the dark. We were able to make out not only raindrops, but also ash and tiny rocks. We stuck out our hands and the sensation of the particles hitting our palms was tingly, but it didn’t hurt at all. The kids were actually enjoying it! “It can’t get any worse than this,” I told Tess. And then we saw a flash of lightning followed by a loud thunderclap. “Kaboom!”

The kids, followed by Tess, ran inside, frightened. I’m not sure what I was thinking but I lingered to watch and record this amazing phenomenon with my video camera. The thunder and lightning became more frequent. Being a meteorologist, I assumed that thunderstorms embedded in the typhoon’s feeder bands have made landfall and have closed in. But then the lightning started streaking in different colors: red, magenta, green, and blue - an electrifying kaleidoscope.

I learned later that Mount Pinatubo had what volcanologists call a phreatic eruption, the explosive type that granulates rocks and shoots them up along with incendiary gases like phosphorus and magnesium, hence the colorful discharges. They looked spectacular but scary.

Coming to my senses, I went indoors to join my family, who by now had become more agitated. Tess and I tried to calm our kids, reassuring them that everything would be okay. They seemed to relax a bit. Then the ground began to tremble. Our host family, who up to this point were all upstairs, came scrambling down, asking, “Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake?” Then the quakes became stronger and more frequent. But, thank God, not strong enough to topple down anything in the house. We were all scared! Everyone was quiet and huddled together with their family. Everyone except Maloy.

Maloy was amusing himself by making shadow puppets. He even had sound effects for the objects he projected on the wall with his hands in front of a candle. When he got tired of that, he put on a pair of pillows on his feet and started jumping from one piece of furniture to another growling and flexing his arms, like the Incredible Hulk. He was so funny, my kids forgot their ordeal and began giggling! Unfortunately, his dad, looking annoyed, made him stop.

So we went back to our somber selves. Then we heard one really loud clap of thunder followed by a big thud. It sounded so close we all rushed to the front door. There, across the front yard was a big branch. It had broken off from the tree due to the weight of the wet ash! That explained the numerous thunderclaps.

Finally, just before midnight, the shaking, the lightning show, the thunderclaps, and the peter-patter on the roof all tapered off and a sense of calmness ensued. We waited. Then waited some more.  Dead silence. We put the kids to sleep. Tess and I stayed up, mostly in silence, until the morning came. Sunday, June 16, 1991, the sun came up bright with a promise of a new day.