Posted on 11/08/2013 1:02:51 PM PST by SeekAndFind
What may be the fiercest typhoon in recorded history smashed into the Philippines early Friday morning, carrying winds that make Superstorm Sandy look like a weak relative. Even Hurricane Katrina, the modern measure of nature’s disastrous force on the United States, pales when compared to the punch and expected devastation from Typhoon Haiyan.
According to the latest report, Haiyan, also known as Yolanda in the Philippines, was packing winds in excess of 200 mph as it homed in on the island nation in the western Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said maximum sustained winds in the Category 5 storm were 195 mph with gusts to 235 mph.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
My prayers go out to everyone affected... I KNOW what it is like.
Never in a hundred, never in a thousand, never in a million years.
Climate Change is the mantra now!
I was at Keesler, and left there shortly before Camille hit. It was a bad one.
I have family in the Philippines. We bought them a stone house on a tall hill but this storm makes me wonder if that will not be enough. :(
Depends which side of his mouth he is speaking from!!!!
Few death reported so far. The Philippines will be up and working again before the close of the next news cycle or two..
Here this would drag on for months or years...
She was truly awful. Glad you got out!
freeper alex w is in cebu hope he’s ok
LOTS of good info. here (meteorological forum):
http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=115958&start=1240
I tracked the thing throughout: This storm is at the very top of the list, for sure. Unbelievable satellite images; virtually a true “perfect storm” just before it hit. The so-called “ADT” (Dvorak) chart only goes to 8.0, our Navy (JTWC) pegged Haiyan for a while at 8.1.
First off, Tacloban City is devastated. The city is a horrid landscape of smashed buildings and completely defoliated trees, with widespread looting and unclaimed bodies decaying in the open air. The typhoon moved fast and didn't last long-- only a few hours-- but it struck the city with absolutely terrifying ferocity. At the height of the storm, as the wind rose to a scream, as windows exploded and as our solid-concrete downtown hotel trembled from the impact of flying debris, as pictures blew off the walls and as children became hysterical, a tremendous storm surge swept the entire downtown. Waterfront blocks were reduced to heaps of rubble. In our hotel, trapped first-floor guests smashed the windows of their rooms to keep from drowning and screamed for help, and we had to drop our cameras and pull them out on mattresses and physically carry the elderly and disabled to the second floor. Mark's leg was ripped open by a piece of debris and he'll require surgery. The city has no communication with the outside world. The hospitals are overflowing with the critically injured. The surrounding communities are mowed down. After a bleak night in a hot, pitch-black, trashed hotel, James, Mark, and I managed to get out of the city on a military chopper and get to Cebu via a C-130-- sitting next to corpses in body bags. Meteorologically, Super Typhoon HAIYAN was fascinating; from a human-interest standpoint, it was utterly ghastly. It's been difficult to process.
How many billions/trillions do they now print at the Fed to send over there to build them back. The USA will probably be the only nation that does this. All the Arab oil dollars and China will not send a Yen. Only America does this stuff. The Navy is probably sailing there now to assist. We do that you know. This un-Christian nation the Dictator calls us.
After going through Katrina, I'm in absolute awe of this typhoon - it was more like a huge tornado in power (went through the one that busted up Altus AFB in the early '80s - it looped around my house). Unless folks have been through either/both, they can only guess at it and they will always guess low...
Reporters confuse the storm of hype with actual storm strength and intensity. Camille remained a hurricane well inland. i was born over a decade later and I recall that there were still pockets of unrepaired damage in coastal towns, boarded up, with “Camille was here” spraypainted on the boards. The most memorable was the high water marks from the storm surge. I don’t know why but restaurants, hotels and such actually put a line and a measurement there, well up into the second story. Seems like that would be a deterrent to tourism but they did do that.
Sandy was hyped because it hit the northeast. People had no idea what to expect, buildings were very unwisely sited and constructed and the populace is, well, much more prone to complaining. The damage was immense, the whine larger still. The storm wasn’t.
Katrina appeared to be a death blow looming for New Orleans and the Louisiana coast, a Cat 5 but it slowed considerably to a 3 and veered off. I recall because there was a live thread here into the thousands of replies. The narrative was already set, however, and the hype rolled on. New Oreleans flooded, yep. A levee broke, yep. As if that’s never happened before. Damage was far, far worse at Pass Christian, Mississippi but the narrative of poor, downtrodden minorities desperately needing money was more important to the news media.
“Katrina made Sandy look anemic. Sandy got the extra creds because it hit a liberal bastion.”
Yea. Ray Nagin, his voters, and the riff raff of Bourbon Street just needed to be a little more liberal, LOL.
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