Super Typhoon Yolanda

“Start from zero.” This sentence was on the lips of many people in the days after super-typhoon Yolanda struck. Many thousands of homes and businesses had been destroyed. People were left with nothing but what ...

As if a super-typhoon and storm surge weren't enough, a low-pressure system has moved into the Tacloban area, bringing with it more rain. I was woken up early this morning to the unwelcome sound of ...

Another day of the typhoon and its aftermath begins. My heart begins to pound the very second that I wake up and become conscious of where I am. It’s not fear or panic or anything ...

This day began without my usual pounding heart. The hotel has filled with people – including several children and 14 fire fighters – and life is beginning to feel not normal but something similar. I ...

It rained a great deal during the night, but the sun has come up this morning in clear skies. It remains to be seen if the rain will hold off during the day. The rest ...

It rained again throughout the night and the morning yesterday. That kept me in and around the pension house. When the sky cleared in the early afternoon, I finally set off with my camera to ...

The rain let up a little bit in the afternoon yesterday, and I went out for a walk. I was interested in going to City Hall to see what was going on there. I kept ...

My experience of the typhoon continues to deepen, as yesterday I had the opportunity to go out with a Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) team as they retrieved bodies. Members of the BFP are staying ...

A lot of things have been puzzling me about this typhoon and in particular my experience of it. And yesterday, I had the chance to talk to a couple of journalists. Their questions brought into ...

I finally encountered my first Canadians among the relief organizations. They consisted, to my joy, of a group of four people with cadaver-sniffing dogs. The four dogs are large, beautiful animals of all different breeds ...

Dan did manage to contact his friend the bicycle mechanic. This fellow works at the Bohol bicycle shop, and Dan arranged to be the very first customer on Monday morning when they plan to open ...

After my morning of running errands yesterday (buying alcohol fuel for my stove and food), my plans were to go out with my camera. However, it continued to rain, and there wasn’t much point to ...

Yesterday was a day for public urination. No matter where I went, which street I went down, which corner I turned, I came across a man sending out a splendid stream of bright yellow liquid ...

A city without power can be a very quiet place. Last night, the silence was so complete and for so many hours that I imagined that I had gone deaf. I made some noise from ...

Yesterday was a day of much interest. I was supposed to go with Dan to the Bohol bicycle shop, but Dan never showed up and never contacted me. I located the Bohol bicycle shop on ...

My NEO word processor ran out of memory, so I have not recorded anything on it for the last two or three days. I made notes in a notebook (my sprained finger won’t let me ...

It’s hard to believe that it has been 24 days since super typhoon Yolanda struck. The streets outside my pension house are still a mess, filled with debris and garbage. All the vehicles dumped there ...

“Want to see dead bodies?” I hear this question a lot as I walk around Tacloban. You’d think that nearly four weeks after the typhoon, we’d come to the end of the dead bodies, but ...

The term “squatters” almost never came up before the typhoon. But in these post-typhoon days, I hear it all the time. It’s generally used in the way you’d expect – in a negative way – ...

It hardly seems appropriate to write “Day 28 Typhoon Yolanda.” The typhoon feels long in the past. It’s still affecting the town in that there is no electricity and no services and few open shops, ...

A knock came on my door in the evening a couple of nights ago. It was Dan. He had gotten off work a bit early, and he stopped by to touch base with me. I ...

Yes, I’m still in Tacloban. I checked on the navy ship – LC 551 – yesterday, and it was still docked in the harbor. However, no one was able to tell me anything about their ...

An unusual day yesterday. A somewhat stressful one. It started out with a walk from the pension house to Mark’s house. I wanted to use their computer to copy some pictures and clear up a ...

Yesterday included another walk to the harbor to check on the navy ship. Marie, my main contact, was at the gangway shack this time and I was glad to see her. However, it didn’t make ...

12:30 p.m.The day began with another flurry of text messages. People here seem to have a routine of greeting the new day by texting a good morning message to everyone on their contact list. So ...

It’s already the 13th of December, perilously close to Christmas. I was thinking that since it is so close, I might as well stay here in Tacloban for Christmas.  In a strange twist, the typhoon ...

The very first thing I did this morning (after taking a bucket bath, shaving, and battling mosquitoes) was to remove the back cover from my broken Kindle. The battery finally went dead, so I couldn’t ...

Many mass graves were dug in and around the Tacloban area in order to deal with the thousands of victims of super typhoon Yolanda on November 8, 2013. These particular mass graves were dug inside ...

It’s Sunday, the worst day of the week by far. I say that because they take this “day of rest” thing seriously in the Philippines, and it is the one day of the week when ...

Monday December 16, 2013 Day 40 Typhoon Yolanda - Day 2 with the American firefighters; a strange day, perhaps; started out with a drive to the sports center where we just had to stand around ...

Tuesday December 17, 2013 Day 41 Typhoon Yolanda - Got on my bike and set off with my camera; intended to go to the coast road on the way out to the MacArthur memorial; on ...

Wednesday December 18, 2013 Day 42 Typhoon Yolanda Not proofed - Went for a walk to the area around Mark’s house with my camera; I walked as far as Edwin’s house and then stopped and ...

Thursday December 19, 2013 Day 43 Typhoon Yolanda Not proofed - Went to fire station at 6:45 to see off the American firefighters, but they were already gone; they’d left at four in the morning ...

Yesterday, was definitely what you would call a sick day. I didn’t leave the pension house the entire day and never strayed very far from the bathroom. I ate nothing the entire day, which is ...

Sunday December 22, 2013 6:55 a.m. Tacloban, Philippines Day 45, Typhoon Yolanda Not proofed I was chatting with Rene yesterday, and I got another element to the houseboy’s story. Rene said that the houseboy had ...

I did a rough count and came up with a figure of about 1,400 bodies in this field. It's located at a government department of health office in Suhi about 15 or 20 kilometers north ...

Despite the threat of rain yesterday (a threat that has become constant in Tacloban in this, the next in a long line of “rainy seasons”), I got on my bicycle and rode out to Suhi ...

Despite a very pleasant Christmas Day, I woke up a curmudgeon on this December 26th. I went out to have a cup of coffee at a place that had recently re-opened, and I was annoyed ...

I think I’m still a curmudgeon today, but I’m so weak that the curmudgeon is not surfacing very much. I don’t have the strength to be annoyed at anyone or anything. I appear to be ...

I DID go to the Medecins Sans Frontieres medical center yesterday, and it was a very good thing that I did. This sickness is not just a passing thing. I’ve been SOOOO sick. I’ve clearly ...

I’m not sure if I woke up as the curmudgeon or the invalid. Maybe I’m still both. I woke up to the tinny and endless sound of horrible music coming out of Guapo’s cell phone ...

The year is stumbling and groaning and shuffling to its end. At least it feels that way here in Tacloban as the rain comes down for hour after hour, day after day, even week after ...

Not to be a broken record, but it rained – hard – all last night. I woke up to a flooded room again and my first task was to take a towel and clean up ...

Much as it pains me to say it, it is raining heavily outside. It has been raining all night, and my first task of the day was to push the floodwater into the bathroom. The ...

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Monday January 27, 2014 4:40 a.m. Carigara, Leyte, Philippines Marupoy Hotel, Room 17 Small room about ten feet by ten feet. A single bed, a small picnic table, a locked wardrobe with old magazines on ...

These photos were all taken in and around the city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte in the Philippines nearly two months after super typhoon Yolanda struck on November 8, 2013. By this point, ...