Most powerful storm ever to hit landfall

[Centurion40]

Still keeping my fingers crossed for your uncle, 40Cent.

My cousin head from him, he's ok! He was north of Manila when the storm hit.  Whew....

Good. Next question: is the area he's at safe enough to stay? It's one thing to be OK. It's another to be trapped in a disaster area with no ability to exit.

Apparently he told my cousin that "we weren't hit too bad", so I can only assume that everything is basically ok where he is.  But he still hasn't answered any of my texts.

[LongBlade]

The report on TV last night indicated that about half of the cellphone service had been restored. I'm not sure if that's across the country or just in the Tacloban area which was hardest hit.

The official death toll from the storm itself remains about 2500, no where near 10,000. This could be revised, but for now that's the official word.

However, the lack of infrastructure means that starvation, dehydration, and disease may yet raise those numbers. Making this worse is an apparent lack of organization in getting relief to those who need it.

[Windigo]

5 days after and they are now just getting a majority of the airport strips cleared and open...

*face palm*

[GDS_Starfury]

methinks they were dealing with other things like pulling survivors and bodies out of the rubble.

[steve58]

Centurion40, great news that your uncle is OK...

[OJsDad]

Listening to the radio today, and the problem isn't a lack of supplies but the ability to get them into the areas that need them. 

[Windigo]

methinks they were dealing with other things like pulling survivors and bodies out of the rubble.

that is just one of the priorities for the living

[GDS_Starfury]

Its a pretty damn big obe when its your family.

[GDS_Starfury]

Windy have you actually lived through a huge natural disaster?

[Centurion40]

Centurion40, great news that your uncle is OK...

Yeah, thanks.

I figured that, even though he's now into his 60s, he survived a stint in the RCN, then went onto a career servicing microwave towers in Alberta (which he also survived, even in the frosty northern Alberta winters)- which paid for his numerous "exploratory" trips to Asia... what I'm getting to is that he survived all of that, a typhoon wasn't going to get him.  A jealous Philippino husband, or brother, or son, or pimp, or cop, or cell-mate might get him, but a typhoon won't.

[Windigo]

Its a pretty damn big obe when its your family.

absolutely... but for disaster survivors in a poor country... thats just day one/two, the ol'gubbmint aint gonna be running in with $2000 dollar prepaid debit cards and water purification tablets - help aint coming down the road until the airports and seaports are working and foreign aide gets there ... just the reality and the government should have planned accordingly

people will start dying of waterborne illnesses in a few more days, and that will kill more people than the typhoon

[Gusington]

Windy was there for the Big Bang and then everything that came after.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Listening to the radio today, and the problem isn't a lack of supplies but the ability to get them into the areas that need them.

It's the same shit every time. Roads are blocked or washed out. The answer is obvious, dozers and front end loaders or even backhoes have to be there immediately to make the roads roads again. How many more F'ing times are we going to see the same thing? It's not like disasters are going to stop, they are going to increase in frequency and/or magnitude.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Windy was there for the Big Bang and then everything that came after.

He shot the big bang!

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

To me the question is about how much a country relies on their Coast Guard for such things. Should it be national or more pooled resources? For island based countries I would think their point of diminishing returns leans more towards their own coast guard.