Typhoon Haiyan (class discussion follow-up)

On November 14th, my Environmental Hazards class met and had special group discussions about Typhoon Haiyan. This was such a major storm that occurred while I was taking this class that it deserved another look, and most definitely deserved a class period devoted to it.

The first thing we were asked to do was describe the storm from a behavioral paradigm based view. Haiyan was a well-defined storm with wind speeds well over 200 mph when it made landfall. It certainly acted like a well-defined storm. The first batch of winds came from one direction which weakened structures and spread debris. Then the eye came ashore and there was a calmer period, before another sudden burst of winds from the opposite direction along with the storm surge. This storm did deviate slightly from the projected path, possibly leaving some people unprepared to deal with it. It was also the largest storm of its kind to ever strike the area. The Philippines is used to typhoons, but not ones of this magnitude.

We were then asked to pick out a couple of major cities that were impacted by the storm. We chose Manilla and Tacloban, as they were hit hard and are receiving most of the media attention.

Next, we used the "swiss cheese" model to describe how a typhoon hazard turned into a major disaster. The main area impacted is an island nation with not a lot of easily accessible evacuation routes. Some news reports say that local officials did not relay the hazard rating of the storm to the local population, and that locals also did not understand storm surges because they only perform disaster drills related to tsunamis. The bulk of the population of this area resides along the coast, and many evacuation areas were only 1/2 mile inland to buildings that were eventually damaged by the storm surge and high winds. But the population couldn't necessarily just move further inland. Hilly areas prevented this because of the possibility of landslides. The Philippines is also a developing country, meaning that the loss of property and human life greatly impacts them, unlike in a developed country that would be more ready to deal with the aftermath.

Finally, we were asked to relate this storm to future storms from a contextual view. Experts may be divided on the overall impacts of global warming, but sea levels are rising. The frequency of storms is NOT necessarily increasing, but the frequency of higher magnitude storms is. The geography of the Philippines as an island nation makes them especially vulnerable to these factors. The area already is hit with a fairly good amount of typhoons, and if they continue to increase in magnitude, we could see many more disasters like this occurring there, as well as other places with similar geography.