Tropical Storm Bilis
Severe Tropical Storm Bilis (international designation: 0604, JTWC designation: 05W, PAGASA name: Florita) was a weak tropical cyclone that caused significant damage to areas of the Philippines, Taiwan, and southeastern China. The word Bilis, submitted by the Philippines, means 'speed' or 'swiftness' in Tagalog.
Despite never officially reaching typhoon strength, Bilis was responsible for $4.4 billion (2006 USD) in damage and 859 fatalities in the Philippines, Taiwan, and China. Most of the damage was caused by heavy rain, which triggered widespread flash flooding and landslides. Many of the areas Bilis flooded were later affected by Typhoon Kaemi, Typhoon Prapiroon, and intense Typhoon Saomai.
Read more about Tropical Storm Bilis: Meteorological History, Preparations, Impact, Aftermath, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words tropical and/or storm:
“Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the storm rattles my windowpane
I’ll stay hunched at my desk, it will roar in vain
For I’ll have plunged deep inside the thrill
Of conjuring spring with the force of my will,
Coaxing the sun from my heart, and building here
Out of my fiery thoughts, a tepid atmosphere.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)