Super Typhoon Yolanda In Bicol

The strongest storm ever recorded on Earth occurred here in the Philippines. Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Friday morning November 8, 2013 wreaking havoc on the islands of Leyte, Samar, Negros Occidental and other islands. Tacloban hit the hardest. It's situated in a low lying Bay Area and the storm surges pummeled the area within 30 minutes. That area had a storm signal of 4 which meant winds exceeded 300 kph. There are about 17 volunteers in that area who are being rescued with the help of the U.S. military and us embassy.  On Sunday morning, November 10th, 2013, 12 volunteers were airlifted by the Philippine Military to Manila (they later reported that they walked 3 hours to the Tacloban airport), and the 5 others were rescued by boat (two PC staff met them in Tac and they went on to Cebu and then on to Manila).

If you would like to make a contribution towards relief goods or rebuilding the nation of the Philippines, please consider donating to one of these organizations.  A dollar goes a long way.  For every dollar you send, it equates for about 42 pesos, which families can use for water, rice and whatever else is manageable. IF you ever encounter this type of situation and can help provide mental health support here is some useful information about psychological first aid.


In Albay, we felt the storm in early hours on Friday morning. Our hotel implanted their emergency action plan (EPA), which resulted with the gate of the front entrance being down and all the windows covered. Our area had a storm signal of 3 with winds exceeding 150 kph (note: it has been said that the Philippines is very conservative with its estimates and in fact the wind gusts are stronger than predicted for each category).

Besides my normal volunteer duties, I serve as one of two safety and security wardens for half of the volunteers of the Albay province.  The Safety and Security Coordinator for PC Philippines appoints people in the provinces to be points of contact to relay messages to volunteers in times of emergency.  Its a pretty streamlined system and cuts down on repetitive conversations between staff and volunteers.  Our main job is to coordinate with volunteers in times of consolidation or evacuation depending on the event (ie: civil unrest, elections, natural disasters, etc.)  We then communicate the needs of the volunteers and report back on the status of our location and weather etc.  Normally a warden's job is simple because there are not any events that occur to need us, except the occasional drill.  But our situation was a bit different.  A few days before the storm, we decided to change our consolidation location for fear that the PC approved one would have devastating damage because of it's location between a river and canal and also in a low lying area, closer to Mayon.  Had we stayed with that particular hotel, we could have experienced flooding, land and/or mud slides. This was a discussion that we had had in the past but it was taken a bit more seriously because of the severity of the predicted storm.  I coordinated with volunteers who live in the area and could report which prospective hotels are not prone to flooding.  The new location proved to be the best place for us as they had generators and were very accommodating with us being there and eased our worries about the storm. 

Luckily for us it was a mild storm with just heavy winds and rain. By mid afternoon Friday the storm past over us and sunny skies were revealed.  Since we stayed inside for the entire two days, we were unsure how the surrounding neighbors survived the storm.  Most of what we knew came from CNN.  On my ride home Saturday back to site it was evident that the storm was strong. Plenty of banana tree trunks were snapped in half spread across the side of the road with other branches of debris. Trees had been uprooted and power lines were down. Luckily no flooding. For the most part many people heeded the advice to take precautions in the storm and to evacuate. You can still see sand bags on the tin roofs to hold them in place.  My hour long commute was during lunch time and it seemed as if most of the storm debris was cleaned earlier in the day, which speaks to the resiliency of the Filipino people.  They do not dwell in the shortcomings but instead wear and smile and keep going.  Their most cherish belongings are not things but people and human relationships, so its a wonder why such storms can not break their spirits! We all could learn a thing about perspectives!


Thanks for reading!

A view of the storm from our hotel window.  Our window faced the back of the hotel.

Showing the path of the hellacious storm.