Have you all been following this typhoon hitting the Philippines? It’s simply massive and said to make Katrina look like a piker.
I hope the Navy is pre-positioning relief efforts. I’ll post Red Cross relief efforts when they become available.
by John Cole| 45 Comments
This post is in: Science & Technology
Have you all been following this typhoon hitting the Philippines? It’s simply massive and said to make Katrina look like a piker.
I hope the Navy is pre-positioning relief efforts. I’ll post Red Cross relief efforts when they become available.
Comments are closed.
piratedan
supposedly the strongest storm ever on record….. it’s beautiful in a way, deadly awesome.
ranchandsyrup
Who will be the first gliberservative to write a post stating that the Philipinos collectively deserve their fate and no one should help them because it will be a waste of money?
Chyron HR
This is Obama’s biggest Katrina since the healthcare.gov rollout.
madmommy
Having run from Katrina I still get a sick feeling when I see radar images of these big storms. I wouldn’t wish having to get through these catastrophic weather events on my worst enemy.
MikeJ
Sustained winds of 195mph. Hoooleeey shit. Not gusting. Sustained. When Katrina hit Louisiana the winds were “only” 125.
Culture of Truth
One hit there last year and 2,000 people died. So even if it doesn’t strike Manila directly it’s safe to say it’s still a big deal.
schrodinger's cat
But fat Al Gore is fat.
Gravenstone
@MikeJ: To put it in perspective, that’s an EF4 tornado, covering several hundred square miles.
me
Damage on the island of Leyte will likely be huge.
? Martin
Yeah, lot of people are going to die from this one.
jonas
Well, no superstorms have hit the US, so Al Gore is fat and global warming is a hoax!
PeakVT
Typhoon Tip is the storm to beat, though it didn’t make landfall at anything like its peak intensity (870 mbar, the world record low).
Gin & Tonic
Rand Paul has issued a statement for the people of the Philippines, saying: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
Betty Cracker
Sustained winds of 195. Wow. I’ve dodged a hurricane or five in my time, but I can’t imagine facing down a monster like that. I hope everyone got the hell out of the path.
El Cruzado
I’m just waiting for the Hurricane Deniers to drop by.
Anoniminous
From the invaluable Jeff Masters:
? Martin
@Betty Cracker: 220K people in Tacloban City, which is going to face a hell of a storm surge given it’s position to the storm. I have no idea where people there go for shelter. The mountains are no less dangerous. The islands aren’t really big enough to drive somewhere to escape the storm. I doubt many people have the money to fly to some place safer.
Bill Arnold
@me:
OMG that wunderblog article is absolutely terrifying. Finger of God, 20 miles wide, roughly.
MikeJ
The monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga because they were blown off by a typhoon. And we won’t go back to Subic any more.
raven
@MikeJ: Olangapo!!!
Mike in NC
@Chyron HR:
Yup, has all the characteristics of yet ANOTHER Obummer false flag operation, just to draw attention away from Benghazi!
/ Lindsey Graham
shelly
@MikeJ:
I can’t even imagine that. When Superstorm Sandy was at it’s highest here, the wind gusts were 70-75 at most.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: Would a typical storm shelter even hold up to a monster like that? God help them.
Culture of Truth
@Gin & Tonic: Paul later tonight to the Phillippines: “Are you Gloustermen?!?”
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
My Navy brother got the unit citation for Subic with no STDs back in the day.
Linda Featheringill
@Bill Arnold:
I checked out wunderblog. Wow.
Southern Beale
Saw a report on Al Jazeera. Looks awful. But since it’s Not Merka no one here will notice.
Redshirt
Typical American news focus: Some horrible disaster happening outside America? Meh.
DID YOU SEE HOW BAD OBAMA’S WEB SITE IS?!
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
My brother was living in Saipan when Super Typhoon Chaba rolled through in 2004. He said it was pretty crazy but the island came through more or less in one piece.
mainmati
Yeah, this is the part of the world I work in (SE Asia). The Philippines protects the much larger Indonesia by taking the brunt of those typhoons. Of course, Indonesia is on a super-active tectonic fault line so volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are their common misery and someday the supervolcano of Danau (Lake) Toba in Sumatra will blast and lay waste to millions (as will also happen in the case of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, by the way).
Meanwhile, in domestic politics, the Whigs are apparently back. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/Philly_elects_first_Whig_in_157_years.html
YellowJournalism
I’ve got coworkers who just moves their families over from the Phillipines this summer. I hope their other family members who are still there are okay. Not sure I they knew what was happening yet today. I’ll find out tomorrow
trollhattan
That’s unfathomably destructive. Cow-orkers on Guam when Typhoon Paka hit holed up in their apartment and one detail I’ll always remember is the wind being strong enough to drive rain inside, through the cinder-block walls. How strong?
Good luck, folks.
fuckwit
That’s frightening. Phillipines is such a desperately poor country in the first place, their people pummelled by poverty, and now this.
But we gotta have those fossil fuels, so keep fucking that chicken, which will eventually come to roost right here at home. Imagine 200mpg gusts hitting the Gulf states and the east coast every season, which will happen when the temperature rises to 4degreesC more than it is now.
Humans are idiots. We’re the stupidest, most destructive creatures ever to crawl around on this planet. All we do really well is kill, and fuck up the environment, which in turn kills even more.
I think Frank Zappa said it best: if there’s intelligent life out in space, it’d be doing the universe a favor if it came here and wiped us out completely before we figure out how to leave this planet and go fuck up other ones.
At times like this I’m filled with nothing more than anger. These kinds of deadly storms will happen every year in more and more places and it is our fault. This isn’t an act of god. It’s an act of first-world selfishness and greed.
trollhattan
Now, for something completely different: Wars on Kinkade!
http://rolanddeschane.deviantart.com/gallery/
trollhattan
Also, too, during the second war to end all wars, this is what happened to my dad’s ship after riding out “Halsey’s Typhoon.”
http://www.uss-bennington.org/phz-typhoon45.html
EthylEster
Yes, I saw a report about this on TV this morning. Of course it was on the al-Jazerra channel.
/snark on
Like real Americans care about storms hitting brown foreigners who often do not speak English.
/snark off
Keith P.
Saw a pic of this on a wide satellite view. The thing looked about the same relative size as the Great Red Spot if it was here. Amazing
Karmus
Not the strongest storm on record, but the strongest one on record at landfall. This is a big deal in the worst possible way. The people there are going to need tons of help–those who survive it.
Frivolous
Hello. I live in the Philippines. Thanks for sparing good wishes for us, John Cole and the commenters. I appreciate it.
sparrow
I am very sorry about the typhoon, but this just has the ‘Yolanda’ song from Pink Martini stuck in my head…
Frivolous
Oh, and in case it matters: John Cole, I’ve been a lurker on your site for a few years now. Enjoy it tremendously. I seldom break out of lurkerhood, but I did to send consolations over Tunch, and again now over this stupid typhoon.
Hope everything goes well for you and yours, and for your regular commenters.
Beeb
Frivolous, please stay safe and let us know how you are doing.
Arclite
@Karmus:
Actually, it probably is the strongest ever. Back in the 60s when all those “strongest” storms were measured, they measured them differently. Isn’t it odd that all the strongest ones were in an 8 years period betw 1958 and 1964, and only in 2013 are we getting one that breaks into the top six?
Redshirt
@Frivolous: Good luck, brother/sister!
Frivolous
Hello, all, and especially to Beeb and Redshirt.
I’m fine here in the Philippines. Yolanda/Haiyuan barely affected the capital, where I live. I almost didn’t even need my umbrella.
This doesn’t mitigate all the death and destruction the typhoon surely caused, but it does mean I was not even inconvenienced much. Thanks again for all your good wishes and thoughts.