Caution: These vids are impressive, and not at all fluffy bunny stuff.

Those people. Those poor, poor people. The survivor's guilt must be awful.

In 1963, Karen, the worst typhoon in recorded history, hit Guam. There was plenty of warning so the planes had moved to Japan and the ships were out to sea. Most people had prepared for the storm. We had a family of civilians come stay with us in our concrete block home on the base, which turned out to be a good thing because after the typhoon, there was only the foundation left of their house. This happened to lots of people. Boats were moved up the side of the mountains, my mother's giant old wood desk was found a mile away from her school, the beach area was destroyed, a helicopter rotor from a repair shop 1.5 miles away landed in our front lawn.

We didn't get clean water for two weeks (Dad and I rigged a Quonset-hut-panel water collector on the roof, and then I helped neighbors do it, so we'd have relatively-clean water, we still boiled it for drinking) and no electricity for six weeks. It was over a holiday, Thanksgiving, I think, and the Navy and Air Force just fed everybody on the island from the cafeterias for several weeks. The schools mostly became shelter for the many people (mostly natives) who lost their homes (my mother's school was due to be abandoned the next year, they were building a new school of concrete block, the old school was Quonset material and had been abandoned by the Navy as unsafe after WWII, so of course, it became a school).

People were back in new houses, businesses back up, and kids in school six months later. Only five people had died (they took shelter in a concrete block building right at the water's edge and the surge dropped the wall right on them), although a lot of people were hurt.

I think it's clear that the warning and having the military already in place is what kept the typhoon from becoming more of a disaster.

I also get vaguely pissed off at amateur disaster videos where there are people getting swept away and possibly hurt, and the guy with the camera just keeps filming.

Concerning the videos, I wonder how much of that is an unconscious attempt to distance themselves from what is going on. In some cases it is clear that the camera is still running, but the person holding it is concerntrating on something else -- personal survival.

In at least one location the water that came ashore did so in a ten-meter wave.

*shudders*

Kate

Modify 'em for your own situation, of course.