Articles in Super Typhoon Yolanda
Day Twenty-Three – Typhoon Yolanda
It’s hard to believe that it has been 24 days since super typhoon Yolanda struck. The streets outside my pension house are still a mess, filled with debris and garbage. All the vehicles dumped there by the floodwaters are still there blocking the roads. I guess these streets are not a priority, as they don’t lead anywhere in particular or connect anything important.
I don’t think …
“Want to see dead bodies?” Day 25 Super Typhoon Yolanda
“Want to see dead bodies?”
I hear this question a lot as I walk around Tacloban. You’d think that nearly four weeks after the typhoon, we’d come to the end of the dead bodies, but you’d be wrong. There seems to be no end to them. As people remove debris and move back into the areas where they used to live, they keep uncovering more of …
Days 26 & 27 Super Typhoon Yolanda
The term “squatters” almost never came up before the typhoon. But in these post-typhoon days, I hear it all the time. It’s generally used in the way you’d expect – in a negative way – and is used to describe the bad qualities of the people who suffered most from the typhoon, those living in the crude shacks along the shoreline and in the spaces …
Day 28 Super Typhoon Yolanda
It hardly seems appropriate to write “Day 28 Typhoon Yolanda.” The typhoon feels long in the past. It’s still affecting the town in that there is no electricity and no services and few open shops, but I don’t wake up thinking about the typhoon anymore. I think about fixing my bike and moving on. I think about what comes next.
Yesterday, Mar mentioned that the BFP …
Day 29 Super Typhoon Yolanda
A knock came on my door in the evening a couple of nights ago. It was Dan. He had gotten off work a bit early, and he stopped by to touch base with me. I was hoping we could sit around and have a beer and have a good, long chat, but it was clear that he had things to do. He could only stay …
Day 32 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Watching Bad Movies
Yes, I’m still in Tacloban. I checked on the navy ship – LC 551 – yesterday, and it was still docked in the harbor. However, no one was able to tell me anything about their departure date or time. The young sailor got on the radio for me, and he even called a senior officer down to talk to me. This senior officer had nothing …
Day 33 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Hospitality Prisoner
An unusual day yesterday. A somewhat stressful one. It started out with a walk from the pension house to Mark’s house. I wanted to use their computer to copy some pictures and clear up a memory card or two. Without a memory card, I can’t do any more photography. Unfortunately, when I got there, I found the entire house empty and disturbingly quiet. Then one …
Day 34 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Getting Sick, Bike Ride to the Bus Station
Yesterday included another walk to the harbor to check on the navy ship. Marie, my main contact, was at the gangway shack this time and I was glad to see her. However, it didn’t make any difference. She wasn’t very friendly this time – probably tired of seeing me – and she had no information about when the ship might be leaving to go to …