Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan)

UPDATE: Please send your help via UNICEF and the RED CROSS on THIS link.

Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name is Haiyan) is expected to make a direct hit on my country this Friday. By then, its wind strength is predicted to reach over 130 mph making it the most powerful storm to hit us in the past 3 years. Typhoons also bring a lot of water and that is the other half of this potential calamity. 

At home my family has drinking water for a month, a water filtration system in case I need more, battery chargers, and extra food to go the distance. We are completely flood-proof because my house is standing way above sea-level and we've hardened against flying debris.

I sure hope this storm does not turn out as bad as the weather guys think it would. I'm a lot more prepared to deal with this one, but I'm worried about everybody else. I've got two more days before it hits us so I'll spend some of it sharing some of my stuff with my brother and sister who live nearby. 

How this matters to Zombie Survivalists:

If we get hit by typhoons about 22 times a year, with one or two of them being very powerful, I really think I'll be fighting the living dead knee-deep in the pouring rain. 

Infrastructure will degrade much faster if there is no functioning government to maintain the drainage systems. Water-borne diseases are expected to be another hazard alongside the deadly Solanum Virus. If Malaria or Dengue kill you instead of a zombie, you still lose.

I think its time for me to buy a few rafts and perhaps a kayak like this: The Oru Kayak. This amazing thing folds neatly into a big suitcase thing! Perfect for storing several of these in my smallish garage. 

 

Today is the day I started seriously thinking about fighting zeds on a boat. It makes perfect sense.

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Lessons from Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana):

It has been four years since Typhoon Ondoy which unleashed unprecedented damage to the country. Scientists say that we never had a storm like that in 60 years. Well now that it happened once, I personally believe it can happen every year.

In my part of town, nearly 17 inches of rain was dumped on us in less than a day. Total damage amounted to over one billion Dollars, there were many fatalities, and millions of people in Metro Manila were affected.

Things were bad. Calamitous. Floodwater rose to two storeys high in various residential areas all over Metro Manila (16 cities, population 12 million). But guess what? Our Bayanihan spirit got nearly every able-bodied Pinoy to come out and help.

In years prior to this disaster, people were content to just "let the government do it". This time, ordinary folks in unprecedented numbers came out to lend a hand.

Bayanihan is basically defined as the community coming to help out a neighbor. When Ondoy hit, we did this on a national level. Image from Wikipedia.

Typhoon Ondoy basically awakened the inner survivalist or prepper on a national level. Thank goodness our preparedness has come a long way since then. This applies to government and private initiatives. Suddenly, it is a company by-word to have risk-reduction meetings every quarter. In my own gig where I became head of Risk Management, people on all levels have been talking about emergency kits, flood prevention, first-aid certifications, and more. 

My secret alter-ego (TZH) was quite happy to see that "prepping" has finally become mainstream. Perhaps I'll have a much easier time finding like-minded folks to prepare against the undead hordes when they finally come.

In the end, I hope the spirit of Bayanihan (pronounce it like bah, yah, neeh, hun. say it fast, and in one go) will prevail WTSHTF and keep our society help keep our society from falling apart. Too often we see post-apocalyptic films depicting warring tribes and utter barbarity following the collapse of a modern society. Watch the movie The Road to get an idea.


Stay vigilant!