Batten down the hatches and wish us luck. Last November the Category 5 Super Typhoon 'Yolanda' slammed in the Philippines and left 6,340 people dead and 1,061 missing. It did $2.86 billion dollars in damage and wrecked many peoples lives. Many in areas like Tacloban and Samar-Leyte are still trying to recover. Now a similar sized storm is upon us... Category 5 Super Typhoon 'Hagupit' is about to come calling. Eerily quiet right now - we're all hoping it'll turn off before making landfall. Wish us luck. We're going to need it! Click the 'Zoom Animation' button on the link below: http://www.typhoon2000.ph/
Stay strong, are prayers are with you, please keep us posted. Have you taken precautions? I suggest a pack with water, lighter,flash light and peanut butter, youll need trash bags and toilet papper too... If you can get a bottle of hand sanitizer thats good. Charge your families cell phones and prepair for power outage. Pleas keep us posted as long as this does not endanger you Slip.
Yes I'm about as prepared as I can get. It's been like Z-day prep over the last 24 hours. I was just down on the street and even with this massie storm bearing down on us... no shortage of crackheads down on the street - twitching and tweakin'. Unreal. The end of my street is the ocean.. about a 100 yards. So that doesn't always feel so great at a time like this. There is nothing between the water and my place - which come to think of it is shaped like a boat. That's either really good... or really bad. It's shocking though in many ways... the local squatter areas - there's a huge one behind me... don't prepare much at all. It's just the craziest thing. It's a huge problem. They live well below the poverty level anyhow so I guess when you have a shack made of tin and rags... there isn't a whole lot of prep.
Bodyshot - I thought about it... but I've decided to stay put. The swells during Yolanda which was a direct hit on the Easter Visayas where I'm at weren't enough make it past the highway. I suspect that's because there are some island out there that break up and massive waves. I don't actually know though. I know that it's always Samar-Leyte that gets absolutely hammered during the typhoon season. It looks they will be ear the brunt of this. Part of the reason it's so severe here is the lack of infrastructure and the amount of very poor people living in substandard housing... there are shacks for miles along the coastline. If this hits directly many of those will be gone by the morning - same as last time.
My wife's family still for the most part located in the old colonial district of Guangzhou, some in HK...I'ven't kept up with any news...don't know where its expected to land. As BodyShot said, if'n you can make to higher ground ... but I know how things can be there and it might not be possible to move/leave Stay dry.
No worries. I don't think this one will HK or China but who knows. I know that many of them the develop out on the ocean go on to slam the Philippines and then wander up to Vietnam and the Southern Chinese coastline causing all sorts of problems.
Quick update on the storm.... still inching its way towards us here. So I'm doing what anyone is doing... boiling sweet potatoes and sipping coffee. The BBC has a few decent breakdowns of what is going on: http://www.bbc.com/weather/features/30335114 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30340625 I did notice that while it's still a Category 5 Super Typhoon it appears to have weakened at least by the indicators here: http://www.typhoon2000.ph/ I really hope it doesn't hammer Leyte and Tacloban. The poor knuckles look like they got hit by an atomic bomb last time. Not a tree left standing on the island. Crazy. One thing that's noticeable here is that at times like these... your phone will flooded with text prayers and calls to prayer and all sorts of crazy religious stuff. Leaves me shaking my head really. How about a bit more preparation and little bit less prayer. Maybe my mindset is just to western to take the prayer angle in. Maybe it's just me - ^^. I'll post again later with an update.
I wish you all the best. I can't imagine going through something like that. I live in one of the mildest climates in the world. We just worry about earthquakes.