Further Information on Typhoon Haiyan

As time passes since the overwhelming and powerful super-typhoon Haiyan (known to Philippine locals as Typhoon Yolanda) hit the grouping of western Pacific Ocean islands on the morning of November 8th, more and more information is revealed. News sources have been collecting stories from individuals who have survived the storm, and have retold their stories of tragedy and hope. I've read stories ranging from simple civilians (from construction workers to stay-at-home moms that sell banana sweets in local markets) to government officials of provinces and their capitals in the Philippines (such as the stories of Talcoban mayor Alfred Romualdez). And as seen in my last post, much is being discussed about the Philippines' future in terms of storm preparedness.

From some of these stories, we can really see how much people didn't understand or prepare for the severity of this storm. Though they knew it was going to be a bad storm, and even though the president, Benigno Aquino III, warned that the storm-surge was "a very real danger". But these individual stories I was ready really helped to solidify the idea that people really didn’t understand the term. There was a construction worker’s family who heard the news and warnings of the storm at their neighbor’s house, since they didn’t have a TV of their own, and heard the term “storm-surge” but none of them knew what it was. When they were figuring out where to go to protect themselves from the storm, they decided on a nearby school they had used for previous typhoons, despite the fact that they were told it was actually unsafe. To me, this means it was not communicated by the media and the government how powerful this storm was going to be, or why certain places that used to be safe for other storms are not safe anymore. This will probably make the transition into better constructed buildings hard, because people will find it hard to believe that storms will be this bad.

Part of preparing for future storms in the Philippines is planting mangrove trees, which could act as resistance and help to slow down any future storm-surges or tsunami waves. They will be using geohazard mapping to determine which areas are most vulnerable to these kinds of events.  

Wall Street Journal on Typhoon Haiyan
GMA News on Planting Mangroves after Typhoon Haiyan