The Philippines and Typhoon Haiyan

Well....it's been quite some time since I've blogged on this site, almost a year in fact. I guess it falls along the line of doing a baby book, you keep up with it a lot when kids are little babies and then life sort of takes over. In any case, I've been getting so many questions about how Steve's doing, I thought I'd write it up, to make it easier to share. 

As most of you know, Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on Friday, Nov 8th, and based on the meteorological reports of the storm, and early assessments of the damage, it appears that it will rank in history as one of the largest storms ever, certainly for the Philippines. The organization I work for, LWR, is posting situation reports pretty much daily here: http://lwr.org/ourwork/emergencies/haiyan  and Steve's organization, Save the Children, is doing the same. http://bit.ly/19ODlfy.   

By Sunday, Steve was on a plane to the Philippines. He works for Save the Children US, and was allocated to join an advance logistics team with Save the Children International, so he's working with teams from all over the world.  Philippines is 13 hours ahead of the US East coast, so he arrived late Monday our time, mid-day Tuesday there time.  His flight to Manila arrived late, so he missed the connection to Cebu, and ended up working out of Save's office in Manila for the rest of the day. At that point, they decided he should instead go with a team to Roxas, (see map here: http://goo.gl/maps/fr7dF ) where he went yesterday.  He called me briefly from the airport in Manila before his flight to Roxas City.  I got a text from an old colleague, Gianni, who worked with us after the 2004 tsunami and is a close friend, and is retired now in the Philippines with is wife. (they were fine in the storm, not located in the main area). Gianni said that Roxas is the main city near Borocay Island, which is a very famous and amazing vacation spot. I checked the map and it is indeed in the same province, but not exactly next door. My fear is that what it also means is a high potential for tourist casualties, because it looks pretty remote and exposed. Time will tell. 

I heard from Steve again late last night via skype chat, and again briefly this morning. He's arrived in Roxas City and is working with a small team of 6 there, trying to get set up and get supplies in to the area. I'll post more later, have to get back to work!