[HOT] Preparations for Typhoon Haiyan

[Andrew Buck]

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Hello everyone,

Currently a category 5 typhoon named Haiyan (also being called Yolanda
in the Philippines) is currently headed for the Philippines.  The eye
of the storm should make landfall about 24 hours from now and it will
continue westward over the islands over the course of about a day
after that.

The storm track has very high confidence from the computer models
predicting its path so this gives us an opportunity to begin mapping
the affected areas before the storm even hits.  You can see the
predicted track as well as the current location of the storm at the
short URL below (which is a link to the 'WunderMap' from Weather
Underground, a great site for this kind of info).  Note that although
the storm itself is quite large only the strip along the center of the
ground track where the eye will pass (about 20 to 50 miles wide) will
be heavily affected by winds and storm surge, although a wide area
will recieve heavy rain so flooding and landslides are possible,
especially given that the ground is already saturated from another
storm that passed the area just a few days ago.

http://wxug.us/19i5j


The town most likely to be affected significantly is the town of
Tacloban (Population ~220,000).  There have already been about 2,500
people evacuated in this town and I would expect that this is where
relief efforts (if they come) will be centered.  Although the
population is fairly large, the town is pretty packed together and
mapping it should not take too long.

I have created a task manager job to help coordinate any mapping
efforts, but this should not be taken as indication of steps toward
activation, we are still just preparing in case the situation becomes
an emergency, it is not an emergency yet and there has been no call
for mapping at this time.  This is all just to be prepared.

http://tasks.hotosm.org/job/338


Also, to further coordinate Harry Wood has created a wiki page for the
typhoon event as a whole.  Again, this is just being done as a
precaution, no call for activation yet.  Please contribute if you have
time, but if you are working on other more urgent tasks then those
should probably remain your priority.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan_(2013)


Thank you in advance to anyone who contributes to the mapping and
hopefully we will be prepared if our maps end up being needed.

- -AndrewBuck
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