"As storm approaches, Filipinos flee region ravaged by ’13 typhoon" by Jim Gomez, Associated Press December 05, 2014
MANILA — Villagers in the central Philippines fled coastal homes and triggered panic-buying in grocery stores and gas stations as a fast-approaching powerful storm brought back nightmares of last year’s deadly onslaught of Typhoon Haiyan.
Typhoon Hagupit — Filipino for ‘‘smash’’ — was packing sustained winds of 127 miles per hour and gusts of up to 149 miles per hour over the Pacific, about 435 miles off the country’s eastern coast. Forecasts show it may hit Eastern Samar province on Saturday and barrel inland along the same route where Haiyan leveled villages and left more than 7,300 dead and missing in November last year.
Haiyan survivor Emily Sagales said many of her neighbors in central Tacloban city, which was ravaged by the typhoon, packed their clothes and fled to a sports stadium and safer homes of relatives. Long lines formed at grocery stores and gas stations as residents stocked up on basic goods, she said.
‘‘The trauma has returned,’’ Sagales, 23, said. After last year’s typhoon, which killed her mother-in-law and washed away her home, she gave birth to her first child, a girl, in a crowded makeshift clinic filled with the injured and the dying near the Tacloban airport.
‘‘It’s worse now because I didn’t have a baby to worry about last year,’’ she said.
Haiyan demolished about 1 million houses and displaced about 4 million people in the central Philippines. Hundreds of residents still living in tents in Tacloban have been prioritized in an ongoing evacuation.
Hotels in Tacloban, a city of more than 200,000 people still struggling to recover, were running out of rooms as wealthier families booked ahead for the weekend.
‘‘The sun is still shining but people are obviously scared. Almost all of our rooms have been booked,’’ said Roan Florendo of the hilltop Leyte Park hotel, which lies near San Pedro Bay in Tacloban.
The government put the military on full alert, workers opened evacuation centers, and transported food packs, medicines, and body bags to far-flung villages, which could be cut off by heavy rains.
In Manila, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday led an emergency meeting of disaster-response agencies and ordered steps to prevent panic-buying and hoarding of goods.
Aquino checked on the readiness of air force aircraft, hospitals, and police contingency plans to deal with possible looting similar to what happened in Tacloban after Haiyan crippled the city’s police force.
‘‘I think we’ve been challenged worse by Yolanda,’’ Aquino told officials, referring to Haiyan’s local name.
Initially, forecasters said there was a chance the typhoon could veer north away from the Philippines in the direction of Japan. Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo, however, told Aquino on Thursday it was almost certain it would slam into the country’s eastern coast facing the Pacific. Some towns in the typhoon’s predicted path said they will close schools Friday. Some commerical flights and interisland ferries were canceled.
The government also decided to move the venue of a meeting next week of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which was to be attended by hundreds of diplomats from 21 member economies, from Albay province, which could be lashed by the typhoon, to the capital, Manila, which forecasters say will likely be spared.
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Related: Rain, wind hit in slow motion in Philippines
"Three dead as weakened storm hits Philippines" by Teresa Cerojano, Associated Press December 08, 2014
LEGAZPI, Philippines — Typhoon Hagupit knocked out power, left at least three people dead, and sent nearly 900,000 into shelters before it weakened Sunday, sparing the central Philippines the type of massive devastation that a monster storm brought to the region last year.
Shallow floods, damaged shanties, and ripped off store signs and tin roofs were a common sight across the region, but there was no major destruction after Hagupit slammed into Eastern Samar and other island provinces.
It was packing maximum sustained winds of 87 miles per hour and gusts of 106 miles per hour Sunday, considerably weaker from its peak power but still a potentially deadly storm, according to forecasters.
The typhoon, which made landfall in Eastern Samar late Saturday, was moving slowly, dumping heavy rain that could trigger landslides and floods.
Traumatized by the death and destruction from Typhoon Haiyan last year, nearly 900,000 people fled to about 1,000 emergency shelters and safer grounds. The government, backed by the 120,000-strong military, had launched massive preparations to attain a zero-casualty target.
Rhea Estuna, a 29-year-old mother of one, fled Thursday to an evacuation center in Tacloban — the city hardest-hit by Haiyan — and waited in fear as Hagupit’s wind and rain lashed the school where she and her family sought refuge.
When she peered outside Sunday, she said she saw a starkly different aftermath than the one she witnessed after Haiyan struck in November 2013. ‘‘There were no bodies scattered on the road, no big mounds of debris,’’ she said.
Haiyan’s tsunami-like storm surges and killer winds left thousands of people dead and leveled entire villages, most of them in and around Tacloban.
Nearly a dozen countries, led by the United States and the European Union, have pledged to help in case of a catastrophe from Hagupit, disaster-response agency chief Alexander Pama said.
The EU commissioner for humanitarian aid, Christos Stylianides, said a team of experts would be deployed to help assess the damage and needed response.
‘‘The Philippines are not alone as they brace up for a possible hardship,’’ he said.
I'm sure the aid is rolling in.
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Also see:
Philippine storm weakens after leaving 21 dead
Storm exits, sparing Philippines of huge losses
