Rebuilding After a Monster Typhoon: One Year Later

The Filipino people are survivors.

That’s what they want you to remember, that they are surviving the hell that Typhoon Haiyan (known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines) brought to their shores one year ago.

The Philippine Islands are no strangers to cyclonic storms. Every season the archipelago is hit—sometimes many times over—with ungodly weather-related terror. But Haiyan was no ordinary typhoon. According to meteorologists, the category-5 beast that Mother Nature resurrected in the days leading up to November 8, 2013, was one of the strongest, fiercest, deadliest storms (on record) to ever make landfall.

The super typhoon roared ashore at 5 a.m. and for the next several hours, the city of Tacloban and its surrounding areas became the backdrop for a real-life horror, as the lives of millions of people became subject to a monster, one possessing 170 mph winds (gusts up to 235 mph) and a catastrophic 20-plus high wall of water (storm surge).

Haiyan’s fury—most specifically, its unprecedented storm surge, which was a factor not thoroughly understood or experienced by most Filipinos—killed more than 6,400 people, displaced 4.1 million, and damaged or destroyed more than 11 million homes. One humanitarian worker described Haiyan’s aftermath “to look like a bomb had gone off.”

People here say they were prepared for the damage that the wind might bring, but when the warnings about the storm surge started to come in, a majority of Tacloban residents had no idea what “storm surge” even meant, and didn’t evacuate. The waters rose. The waves raged. The current morphed into a force that many could not (and did not) make it through. More than one thousand souls are still noted as “missing,” believed to have become victims of an angry San Pedro Bay.

Yesterday, on the anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan’s arrival, I walked among Tacloban’s three mass graves, two parks and the front lawn of a church that, out of necessity, became makeshift tombs for many of those who were lost amid the storm.

The stories told by the survivors are horrendous tales, with details that most of us only experience in nightmares—stories of loved ones drowning, children being swept away by the surging waters, and stories about friends being hit by flying palm trees and coconuts. And then there are the stories about how those still with us survived the monster.

One woman, a mother of three small kids—two of whom are World Vision sponsored children—told me that she and her family braved the storm in her church’s sanctuary.

“But then the winds ripped the roof off the church and smashed in the windows.”

Amid flying glass, debris, and torrential rain, she huddled her little ones together and darted for the floor beneath the altar’s communion table where they weathered the remainder of the storm. While holding tightly to her kids, she said that they just “cried and prayed—that’s all we could do—and hope we’d be okay.”

And she and her little ones were indeed okay.

But then, when the winds died down and the waters began to recede and those who survived the terror began emerging from their hideouts, they realized quickly that their nightmare was just beginning. Their homes, their crops, their livelihoods, their roads, their ways of life—gone, stolen from them in just hours.

“But we are rebuilding!” That’s one of the first things that an employee of World Vision said to me. A wide smile across her face, she said, “We are a strong people and we are rebuilding more quickly than anybody expected.”

And that’s true. A year later, though the signs of the monster’s presence still linger, they no longer define the Tacloban communities.

From day one, because of a long-lasting and thriving child sponsorship program with the Philippines, World Vision was at Haiyan’s ground zero, putting into action their vast strategy for relief, a plan that started with food, clean water, temporary shelter, and organization.

Child sponsorship isn’t only about community development, it’s also the lifeblood of relief efforts when tragedy strikes. And because of people like you and me, people who sacrifice a portion of their wealth to sponsor a child, the surviving victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines did not engage the nightmare alone.

Filipinos are a beautiful, kind and grateful people. They are, by all accounts, not simply surviving the tragic events of November 8, 2013, they are rebuilding their lives to become better than what was true before Haiyan.

But they cannot do it alone. They need our help to thrive.

Would you please consider sponsoring a World Vision child from the Philippines? Your gift will help World Vision continue to bring hope and aid to not only the victims of Typhoon Haiyan but to those who will need help long after the emergency relief efforts are finished.

We survive when we help others survive.

**Click here to sponsor a child through World Vision**

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