Different Stories of Yolanda, heartbreaking, inspiring and irritating

It always breaks my heart to read a story such as this,  Mom puts up bounty for missing daughter in Tacloban.  I followed other stories of  Yolanda, those missing their  parents, sisters and brothers and relatives.  A fellow blogger and co-member of  Filipino Bloggers Worldwide was also a victim of  Yolanda.  It was  really sad for  blogging community as death was confirmed on the list of Tacloban casualties.  Her last blog before Yolanda took her life away  was,  "Grant Us Special Protection Lord."   While reading her blog, I cried and was deeply saddened. 

But  there is also an inspiring story like  Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho's feature last week, "Love in Time of Yolanda."  A few minutes feature on TV  wasn't enough for me so I followed the story online. I read the whole story on the website.  It was heartwarming.  I cried, so hard that I could feel the love in their story.   Grace was seriously injured during the super typhoon.  Houssam Hammoudi, the fiance  from Canada rushed to see her in Ormoc.   Hammoudi found her beloved one in the hospital lying in bad condition.  He immediately transferred Grace to a private hospital for surgery.  This man find his way to save Grace right on the brink of  disaster.   With only limited option, this man pleaded for help through  blog:  Operation Saving Grace.  In his blog,  Houssam then asked for help. “PLEASE HELP!   If anyone I know gave $10, I can save her.  I only have $1,800 left and that is not enough.”   

The irritating story of  Yolanda is the drama in the senate.  This story also made me cry.  It  totally  left me crying out  of  anger.  During Yolanda, these politicians were quiet, at least  a week of Yolanda.   Just barely  two weeks and a few days,  while the survivors haven't recovered yet,  these two senators came out  and started their own drama, a debate, a trash..  So much of dirty and corrupt politics.  Where were these corrupt politicians during the super typhoon?  I hope  they were all having a vacation in Leyte when  it  happened and drowned themselves with  their conscience in  storm surge.

DigitalGlobe Opens Imagery Access to Yolanda-Damaged Areas

Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Super Typhoon Yolanda, left the Philippines in a national state of calamity with at least 2 million families in 44 provinces gravely affected, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

The world has united to help victims of the disaster wrought by one of the strongest storms ever recorded. Various relief efforts are helping to alleviate the dire situation. But long-term strategies involving strategic mapping of urban and rural developments are needed more than ever. Learning where and how to adapt to future storms, including surges, in order to minimize the impact of such weather disturbances is key to rebuilding lives, property and infrastructure in the damaged areas.

The numbers reported from the ground up are staggering. Resources depicting the aftermath of the storm surge abound in social media, taken and uploaded by witnesses and survivors in the provinces of Cebu Island, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Western Samar, Southern Leyte, Leyte, and Biliran, among others.

A resource is needed that will enable disaster and emergency team responders, relief operation trackers and infrastructure planners to see the extent of damage caused by Yolanda in up-to-date satellite imagery with photos before and after the storm.

RASA Surveying Land Survey Consultants, a DigitalGlobe reseller in the Philippines, supports the campaign to make professional satellite imaging available to the Philippine government and the general public to assist in rebuilding efforts. DigitalGlobe, a satellite imagery provider and operator of the largest space satellite constellation in the world responded to the call to help the Philippines under Operation Damayan by establishing special accounts on its cloud services platform that will let the public get temporary access to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)-related imagery.

The DigitalGlobe facility has been made available to the government for the time being to enable it to respond to emergency measures better, faster. DigitalGlobe has established special accounts on its cloud services platform to enable Government to make quick emergency responses on the ground where needed most. This effort also helps local government units (LGUs) of affected areas to establish technical reports so relief operations can be delivered more effectively and recovery solutions implemented ASAP.

DigitalGlobe satellite imagery that translates to images with resolution of 0.5m GSD (ground sampling distance) is the most accurate. For every pixel in the image, one can see anything bigger than half a meter on the ground;’ for example, cars, houses, large trees, roads and bridges. Planning and reconstruction engineers may then assess actualdamages and categorize them into lightly damaged, severely damaged or totally damaged houses, buildings and other structures. This would hasten the process of balanced relief operations and implementation of reconstruction efforts.

Currently, the public can also access data published at DigitalGlobe.com for free. Satellite imagery for Leyte Island, parts of Samar island, Northern Cebu, including Bantayan Island, Roxas City and Coron, Palawan can be accessed at www.digitalglobe.com/super-typhoon-haiyan. Fresh imagery before and after Super Typhoon Yolanda is made possible by DigitalGlobe’s constellation of satellites’ daily collection of data. Project Noah, Google Earth, NAMRIA and DOST are among theprivate and government agencies that use DigitalGlobe images for their application.

Now that electricity and communication lines are not yet fully operational, LGUs can rely on DigitalGlobe for images that will help them assess the extent and cost of damages, identify areas for relocation, areas that should not have structures, etc. Private citizens may also use DigitalGlobe in support of their insurance claims to prove that their houses or buildings have been damaged.

More information is available at www.rasasurvey.com.

Korina Sanchez at CNN

Korina Sanchez, a veteran anchor and ABS-CBN News journalist  was featured at CNN's episode "The World Lead"   with caption "How dare you, CNN?" 

On November 13, 2013, Korina Sanchez commented on   Anderson Cooper's Tacloban report about Typhoon  Yolanda.  According to Cooper, "there's no evidence of organized relief and rescue operation around Tacloban.  I haven't seen much of relief effort, I haven't seen a large military presence."

Korina then reacted and criticized that Cooper doesn't know what he is talking about.

Cooper said, "Miss Sanchez is welcome to go there and urge to go there. I don't know if she has but her husband is in-charge I'm sure she can arrange her flight."

Anderson Cooper's tweets  spread in local media and drew positive reaction from netizen.

Survivors of Typhoon Yolanda

The past few days have been full of terrible and devastating news,  all distressed of  what happened.  Today is  Day 8 after the devastation.  I couldn't find a word to describe it  because  devastation doesn't even fit to  detail  Yolanda, the super typhoon  with sustained wind of 315 kph and gusts reaching 380 kph.  I couldn't even imagine how  strong it was,  the ferocious wind and tsunami combined. 

 

My sister's neighbor's family is from Tacloban.  Like other survivors, they shared the same horrible story of how they survived.  They crawled inside the ceiling of their house, hung on for their lives for six hours and if five more  inches of  flood emerged,  they wouldn't survive, and probably would die.  The next day,  all that's left with them was nothing.  They walked barefoot for six hours, walk past dead bodies lying on the street,   scavenging whatever food they could get  to survive and  waited desperately for four days with some heavy rain while waiting to board a military aircraft to evacuate.  Each survivor  has their own unimaginable horror story of  Yolanda.

If there is no word to describe  devastation, likewise, no exact word fits  to describe how strong Filipinos are.-  because we are stronger than any typhoon.  No matter how strong the wind is,  we simply  bend but we  never break.  We have an average of  20 typhoons every year and other calamities... and quickly recover.. and..

This too, shall pass.

Salamat Anderson Cooper!

Help. Donate. 

   

image source: internet

Frustrating Sickening Depressing

and all the words that could describe happening on Day 5 of disaster (Yolanda). It is not the time to blame  now or discuss disaster prevention or who is responsible because it already happened and  is pointless  because what the survivors need  now is relief and hope.  Let us put the blame later,  or  tomorrow   because  the survivors  are  now appealing and screaming  for  IMMEDIATE relief. 

"Not  in a few days,  not in a few hours  but  now,"   so as one of the survivors  told  the CNN  Correspondent.

Give a Hand and Pray

When there's no one to hear your call for help,  no home to go back to --  there is something you need to embrace what is only  left,  to be strong to survive.   A survivor was asked  where he's  going and  answered with confusion like  he's walking nowhere   in the midst of tsunami hit-like zone showed hopelessness in his face. It was the day  after  the storm  and  he couldn't grasp the horror,  a real  scene or a  nightmare while sitting on top of the debris of flattened home.  I wasn't  there to witness but  I  could feel the agony.  I could feel the pain.    I've  watched the videos of  the most devastating typhoon, Yolanda, (Haiyan).  Just looking at the images  almost gave me a feeling of hopelessness too.  But out  of the hopeless situation,   there is still a light of hope from a survivor's story,  a  reason  why he made it through the storm.


The nation prepared for the strongest storm to land in the country.  Other provinces  in Visayas  were also directly  hit and   almost  80%  or properties were washed away  but   less casualty was reported.  What happened to Tacloban  was  beyond everyone else's  imagination and disaster was beyond  off scale.  Literally, storm surge now means  ocean  water  that  goes to the land.   On the day of the storm,  the boats  washed  ashore  while  human bodies  swayed into the ocean.  There were some warnings about  up to 7 meters of wave heights, flashfloods and landslides  but it was a disaster and no one could exactly tell about  how  much preparation is needed  until  caught  by surprise by the  storm.  We learned  what "flood"  means  from   Ondoy and now learned what "storm surge" means from Yolanda.

The president declared last night a  state of national calamity.  Mr. President gave updates and  thanked   international communities and  foreign countries who pledged for help.  In this time of grief,  the help and  donation coming in from different groups or individual is an indication  of hope, knowing that  there is empathy message in unity  and  this calamity will be over,  if not soon.

Help  and prayers  are  all that we can do.  Let us  pray for the survivors to embrace what  is only left with them now, to stay strong and survive.   Let us pray for  those who did not survive the storm  to find peace for their soul.  Let us pray for the volunteers and rescuers enough strength for their mind and body to handle and deal the situation on the  brink of catastrophe.  Let us pray  to guide the conscience of   public officials and those handling donations to spend  up to the last cent of  the  fund fairly and evenly  where it is intended for,  the survivors.

Let us all unite and  stop blaming why it all happened, question lack of preparations,  the curse of  the  government  or  the microwave pulse.  What  we can  do  right now,  and I think  the  best that we can  do  is give a  hand  and  pray.

The Yolanda Aftermath

Let us all pray for all those affected by super typhoon, "Yolanda"  as  almost ten regions of the nation were affected and some areas were totally devastated  by  the typhoon.

Scary. Unimaginable  as I watched the footage of the aftermath of  "Yolanda",  the strongest typhoon ever landed on the history.  I saw some videos that  were unedited,  just bit blurred  for scenes that are sensitive for viewers. Dead bodies lying on the street, evacuation areas that  should have been the safest area were  also hit and some evacuees were feared to have been drowned.   A wounded woman running on a completely wiped out city looking for her child that slipped off her hand on the midst of the storm, and her siblings and parents feared to have been dead is totally  a heartbreaking scene.   Scary, devastating.   This  is just in one city, Tacloban,  where "Yolanda" made a landfall.  I couldn't imagine  the aftermath in other cities  slashed  by storm signal number 4.

As  of  yet,  the roads connecting to airport (airport was even washed out)  are completely blocked.  Communication lines are still down. Media and other agencies only way to reach the areas is  by private helicopter,  same with video feeds  only via the nearest city with satellite. 

PAGASA released a weather bulletin at 3:30 pm that Typhoon "Yolanda" is now outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR.)  Share, donate and pray for all the victims of the typhoon.

One of the photos of Yolanda aftermath.  Debris float on a flooded road. Photo by Reuters/TVReuters

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