We got so very lucky with this storm. It was forecast to hit us directly, in which case we would have been without services for probably a couple weeks. A lot of people were without power after Mawar for over a month. And we never lost water, thank God.

Still, I was surprised that what was essentially a tropical storm for us, with some typhoon-strength gusts, took down electricity for the majority of the island for over two days in addition to water for a lot of people. Many are still without services. It's just one of the drawbacks of living on a small, remote island.