Super Typhoon Haiyan Disaster Relief 13NOV13

THE death and destruction in the Philippines from Typhoon Haiayn is tragic to say the least. Not to be callous, but the dead are gone, and there are millions of living who need help NOW. Check out this guide to giving from Charity Navigator and be a smart and compassionate donor. And please, don't send food or clothes, it is a waste of money. The legitimate charities, those who know how to respond to a disaster of this magnitude, need your financial support to provide immediate assistance.

Charities Providing Relief	Rating
Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA
All Hands Raised
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
AmeriCares
Concern Worldwide US
Convoy of Hope
Direct Relief
Doctors Without Borders, USA
GlobalGiving
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
Lutheran World Relief
MAP International
Matthew 25: Ministries
Medical Teams International
Mercy Corps
Operation Blessing International
Operation USA
Oxfam America

Typhoon Haiyan, considered the most powerful storm to ever make landfall battered the Philippines with sustained winds close to 200 mph. The current death toll is feared to be over 10,000. The storm has caused mudslides, 30 feet high storm surges, as well as flash flooding. According to Philippine authorities, more than 12 million people are at risk due to the storm's powerful impact.
Before you make a donation, consider the following tips:

• Designate Your Investment
  Worried that your donation will go towards the charity's general operating fund or saved for a future crisis? This is a very understandable concern. By designating your gift, you'll ensure that your donation will be used as you intended.
  • However, not every charity fundraising for this disaster offers donors a way to designate their gift and makes a promise that 100% of funds collected for this disaster will only be used for Typhoon Haiyan relief. If the charity has clearly indicated to us, and on their website, that they are committed to using Super Typhoon Haiyan restricted funds only for relief and recovery efforts related to this disaster, then we have included them in the list to the right. Focus on this list if you want to ensure that your gift will only be used for this natural disaster.
    
    And be sure when you make your donation, that you follow the charity's instructions for restricting your gift. Most charities with online giving portals offer a check box feature so that you can tell the organization how to spend your contribution. If you are mailing in a check, then write a note in the memo section of the check specifying that you want your gift spent entirely on the current crisis.
     
  • Some charities that are participating in the relief and recovery efforts are either (1) not entirely clear when we asked them about their Haiyan fundraising efforts, (2)  are accepting designated gifts with the caveat that ‘excess’ funds may be used elsewhere, or (3) are not accepting designated gifts at all preferring to ask donors to contribute to their work in responding to any and all disasters. These charities include: American Red Cross, Save the Children, Heart to Heart International, Plan International USA, United States Fund for UNICEF, World Food Program USA, Childfund International, Catholic Relief Services, ShelterBox USA, World Vision, and Water Missions International. If you plan to support one of these charities, then we strongly encourage you to contact the charity directly to find out how your donation will be used.

• Give To An Established Charity
  Don't let an unscrupulous charity take advantage of your goodwill. Find a charity with a proven track record of success with dealing with this type of major natural disaster and/or that has a history of working in the Philippines. Avoid fly-by-night charities created specifically to deal with Typhoon Haiyan. Even well-meaning new organizations will not have the infrastructure and knowledge of the region to efficiently maximize your gift. If you do feel compelled to give to a new charity, be sure to get proof that the group is in fact a registered public charity with 501 (c) (3) status.
   
• Consider The Nature Of The Charity’s Work
  Not every charity responds to a disaster in the same way. Some provide medical assistance, some shelter, some food and water. Others will be more focused on either short term or long term rebuilding efforts. And some will just fundraise for other nonprofits. Think about what it is you want your philanthropic investment to accomplish and then take the time to find the charities doing that work. At Charity Navigator we link to each charity’s website so that you can quickly learn more about their plans to help.
   
• Be Inspired By Social Media, But Still Do Your Homework
  Social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs are delivering heart-wrenching images and information about this disaster to our computers and phones. These often include pleas to donate. While these applications can be a powerful tool to inspire your desire to help, you should not blindly give via these vehicles. You must take the time to investigate the groups behind such pleas for help to ensure that it comes from a legitimate nonprofit.
   
• Be Careful Of Email Solicitations
  • Be Leery Of People That Contact You Online Claiming To Be A Victim – Unless you personally know someone in the impacted area, anyone alleging to be in this position is most likely part of a scam. Obviously, people affected by a large scale disaster like Typhoon Haiyan are in no position to contact you directly for assistance.
  • Delete Unsolicited Emails With Attachments - Never respond to unsolicited emails. Do not open any attachments to these emails even if they claim to contain pictures from the disaster. These attachments are probably viruses.

• Seek Out The Charity’s Authorized Website
  Criminals are likely to set up bogus sites to steal the identity and money of generous and unsuspecting individuals. We saw this after Hurricane Katrina when the FBI reported that 4,000 sites were created to do just that. So, if you plan to give online, be sure to find the charity’s legitimate site. You can safely give on Charity Navigator’s site via our partnership with Network for Good. Alternatively, we link to each charity’s authorized site so you can give there if you prefer.
   
• Think Before You Text 
  So long as you do your homework – meaning that you’ve vetted the charity and made sure that you are using the proper texting instructions- then texting can be a great way to give. Remember there may be additional costs to you to make such a gift. And it can take as much as 90 days for the charity to receive the funds.
   
• Do Not Send Supplies
  Knowing that people are desperately in need of basic supplies like food, water and shelter, it is hard not to want to pack up and send a box of supplies. But this type of philanthropy is simply not practical or efficient. Even if mail could get to the Philippines, no one is set up to receive these goods, much less organize and distribute them to the victims. Furthermore, charities are often able to partner with companies to acquire large amounts of in-kind donations such as bottled water and new clothing. Instead of boxing up and sending your old clothing, have a garage sale and turn your used goods into cash and donate that to a worthy charity.
   
• Avoid Telemarketers
  Be wary of fundraisers who pressure you to make a contribution over the phone. Never divulge your credit card information to someone soliciting you via the phone. Instead, hang up, do your due dilligence and give to a vetted charity directly. Read Charity Navigator's Guide to Handling Telephone Appeals
   
• Do Not Expect Immediate Results, But Do Keep Tabs On What Your Donation Accomplishes
  It takes time for charities to mobilize, to assess the problems that need to be addressed and to develop effective solutions. Donors need to be patient so charities will not feel pressured to plunge in and offer ineffective aid, simply to placate impatient donors. That doesn't mean donors shouldn't hold the charities accountable for delivering on their promises! Be sure to follow up with the charity in a few months to find out (a) how your donation was put to use and (b) if the organization needs additional support to complete the recovery effort.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=1659#.UoTFjuJGZ6h

Tornado Survivors Pick Up Pieces As Obama Visits 29APR11

THE vicious, violent, deadly storms that ravaged the southern U.S. this week, and the other violent weather across the country this past month reminds us just how precious life is. It is good the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been dispatched by Pres Obama to provide all the assistance the U.S. government has to offer in these disaster areas. We all need to keep these people and communities in our prayers and thoughts and donate what we can to relief agencies. BUT, it must be noted, most of these areas devastated by violent weather have elected repiglican and tea-baggers to federal and state office, elected officials who support rep paul ryan's buget proposal that drastically slashes non-defense government funding, a budget that practically eliminates FEMA. Now that these people need FEMA , and are receiving federal disaster assistance, maybe they will reconsider the propaganda and deception of their repiglican and tea-bagger elected officials? We will see....

by NPR Staff and Wires

Enlarge Angela Lewis/AP Andy Page cries as he sits with his cat, Ellie, placed in a pet carrier, in his storm-demolished apartment in Trenton, Ga., on Thursday. Page has several cats, and Ellie was the last one he was looking for.

Enlarge Charles Dharapak/AP President Obama, flanked by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and Tuscaloosa, Ala., Mayor Walter Maddox, tours tornado damage in Tuscaloosa on Friday.

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April 29, 2011

Gas station lines, reports of looting and the discovery of smashed heirlooms sapped survivors' energy Friday around cities shattered by the deadliest tornado outbreak in nearly four decades. President Obama arrived in devastated Alabama to console victims, while authorities worked to overcome damaged infrastructure and even a shortage of body bags in one town.
As Obama stepped off a plane at the airport in hard-hit Tuscaloosa, rescuers and survivors combed the remains of neighborhoods pulverized by Wednesday's outbreak that killed at least 318 across seven states. In one of its first official assessments of the tornadoes' strength, the National Weather Service gave the worst possible rating to one that raked Mississippi and said it was the strongest to hit the state since 1966.
After witnessing the damage in storm-wracked neighborhoods, Obama said he's "never seen devastation like this."

Heard On 'Morning Edition'

April 29, 2011

NPR's Debbie Elliott On Tuscaloosa's 'Dazed' Survivors

[4 min 4 sec]

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April 29, 2011

Birmingham Reporter: Parts Of City 'Like A War Zone'

[4 min 1 sec]

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April 29, 2011

Stories From The Storm: Home 'Reduced To Studs'; 'We Survived'

[3 min 46 sec]

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He promised residents: "We're going to make sure you're not forgotten."
The situation was dire about 90 miles to the north in the demolished town of Hackleburg, Ala., where officials were keeping bodies in a refrigerated truck amid a body bag shortage. Officials said at least 27 are dead there, and searches for the missing continue. Town officials say they need everything from portable showers to tents and flashlights.
The only grocery store, the fire and police departments and the school are destroyed. There are no power, communications, water or other services. Fire Chief Steve Hood said he desperately wants flashlights for the town's 1,500 residents because he doesn't want them to use candles that could start fires.
"We don't have water to put out any fires," he said.
People have looted a demolished Wrangler plant, and authorities locked up drugs from a destroyed pharmacy in a bank vault, said Stanley Webb, chief agent in the county's drug task force.
"If people steal, we are not playing around. They will go to jail," he said.
Elsewhere, drivers hunted for fuel for cars and generators after many gas stations were shuttered by widespread power outages. Others trickled back to their homes, ducking police roadblocks and fallen limbs and power lines to reclaim their belongings.
They struggled with no electricity and little help from stretched-thin law enforcement. And they were frustrated by the near-constant presence of gawkers who drove by in search of a cellphone camera picture — or worse, a trinket to take home.
Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. Authorities in Concord and elsewhere even painted the same "X" symbols they did in New Orleans to mark which homes they searched and how many survivors were found.

The storms did the brunt of their damage in Alabama. More than two-thirds of the victims lived there, and large cities bore the scars of half-mile-wide twisters that tore through. The high death toll seems surprising in the era of Doppler radar and precise satellite forecasts. But the storms were just too wide and too powerful to avoid a horrifying body count.
As many as 1 million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.

Stories From The Storm

Listeners who witnessed the storms called in to NPR's Morning Edition to share their stories. Here's a sampling:
I was actually watching the news, so we were tracking the storm and we realized it was coming right for us as it was headed for downtown. We went into the back of the building and ... by the time we got into cover, we felt the storm hit. Um, we could feel the pressure change and we heard a huge crack! And I thought it was a tree coming down outside ... but it ended up being my upstairs neighbor's roof caving in on them, and then immediately water started pouring down through our ceiling. Our insurance put us up in a temporary hotel until we kind of figure out what's going on because our condo has been reduced to studs. So we're looking at maybe on the outside of six to eight months of reconstruction. We're just taking it day by day now.
— Jennifer Swift, Raleigh, N.C.
I had the family in the bathroom, tiny bathroom downstairs, and the cushions over their heads and answering their questions as to what was going on, because I was looking out the windows. The trees were moving in ways I've never seen them before. And ... we survived. But people just a couple of miles down from us didn't. I remember late that night, I was standing on my front porch and I watched the funnel cloud go past. You get that impression that you don't know whether or not you're next ...
— Stephen McAmis, Cleveland, Tenn.

The storms seemed to home in on populated areas by hugging the interstate highways and obliterating neighborhoods and even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va.
Alabama emergency management officials said in a news release early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia, two in Louisiana and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured, 900 in Tuscaloosa alone.
Officials said at least 13 of Mississippi's deaths were in the town of Smithville, where winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories.
Jones County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lance Chancellor described the devastation Friday on NPR's Morning Edition.
"There are brick structures [in Smithville], brick homes that were reduced to nothing left but the slab. And the carpet that was glued down on that slab was actually sucked up by the tornado," Chancellor said.
The police department lost all of its patrol cars — they were all slammed into the building and crushed by a fallen communications tower, he said. And the only thing left of the U.S. Post Office is a 20-foot section of brick wall.
"There's ... just debris everywhere you look in every direction," he said.

Interactive Graphic

Click on the map below to see images from the massive storm system and learn how a tornado is formed.

AP

Smithville Fire Department Assistant Chief Tim Coker told NPR that the storm and its aftermath are "pretty traumatic for everybody" in their small town.
"We're all kind of like a small family more than a community because we all kind of grew up together and we all know each other," Coker said. "The hardest thing probably about being a volunteer is it's always people you know. That's kind of the tough part. So, you just kind of put the walls up and, uh, move on. It's going to sink in later, usually."
At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother's headstone back to its proper place.
The National Weather service said the Smithville tornado was an EF-5 storm, with top winds of 205 mph. Meteorologist Jim LaDue at the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said he expects "many more" of Wednesday's tornadoes to be rated EF-5, the worst rating in the tornado measurement system.
This story contains material from The Associated Press

2010 extreme weather cost lives, health, economy from CLIMATE PROGRESS 29APR11

THE vicious, violent, deadly storms that ravaged the southern U.S. this week, and the other violent weather across the country this past month reminds us just how precious life is. It is good the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been dispatched by Pres Obama to provide all the assistance the U.S. government has to offer in these disaster areas. We all need to keep these people and communities in our prayers and thoughts and donate what we can to relief agencies. BUT, it must be noted, most of these areas devastated by violent weather have elected repiglican and tea-baggers to federal and state office, elected officials who support rep paul ryan's buget proposal that drastically slashes non-defense government funding, a budget that practically eliminates FEMA. Now that these people need FEMA , and are receiving federal disaster assistance, maybe they will reconsider the propaganda and deception of their repiglican and tea-bagger elected officials? We will see....

“April is the cruelest month.” — T. S. Eliot

CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss, Valeri Vasquez, and Ben Kaldunski have written an excellent 34–page report, “The Year of Living Dangerously.”  Its conclusion begins, “The extreme weather in 2010 could be a preview of a not-too-distant future should we fail to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.”
Here is an overview of that report by the authors.
April 2011 has been a cruel month indeed for Americans due to extreme weather. The Weather Channel observed that:

It’s been a truly awful, record-setting, tornadic April. We’ve had eleven major severe weather events, some lasting multiple days.

These extreme events included “supercell thunderstorms” in Iowa, severe drought and record wildfires in Texas, and heavy rains across the United States. The recent southeastern storms and tornados took at least 297 lives across eight states. And heavy rains in the Mississippi River valley could cause the most severe, damaging floods there in nearly a century.
This extreme weather, though record setting in some places, may be the new normal. Last year, unprecedented extreme weather led to a record number of disaster declarations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The United States and the world were swept by flooding, severe winter storms, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
The extreme weather of 2010 exacted a huge human and economic toll as well. More than 380 people died and 1,700 were injured due to weather events in the United States throughout the year. And the magnitude of these events forced the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to declare 81 disasters last year. For nearly 60 years, the annual average has been 33. In 2010, total damages exceeded a whopping $6.7 billion. As of April 2011, FEMA had dedicated more than $2 billion in financial assistance to those harmed by extreme weather in 2010.
A February 2011 special report from Reuters noted that it’s been rough going for the $500 billion U.S. property insurance business, explaining that “storms are happening in places they never happened before, at intensities they have never reached before and at times of year when they didn’t used to happen.”
It is precisely this uncertainty “associated with climate change that substantiates the risks to the economy and society,” says George Backus, D.Engr., of the Discrete Mathematics and Complex Systems Department at Sandia National Laboratories. This is bad news for a nation just emerging from the grips of the Great Recession. Per Backus, a 2010 report from Sandia estimates that “the climate uncertainty as it pertains to rainfall alone [puts] the U.S. economy is at risk of losing between $600 billion and $2 trillion, and between 4 million and 13 million U.S. jobs over the next 40 years.”
Dr. Evan Mills, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory confirms that in the United States, “insured weather-related losses in recent years have been trending upward much faster than population, inflation, or insurance penetration, and far outpace losses for non-weather-related events.”
It is difficult, of course, to link or “attribute” individual extreme weather events in a single year to global warming. Climate factors—including human influences—shape weather patterns. According to Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, “the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change.” And as Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D., head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, explained at the American Meteorological Society’s January 2011 meeting, “Given that global warming is unequivocal, the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
In other words, says Trenberth, “it’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants are turning up the heat on our planet. Scientists agree that the string of disastrous weather extremes this past year are the types of severe weather that will become more frequent or ferocious as the planet continues to warm. For instance, in the “first major paper of its kind” tracking global climatic trends from 1951 to 1999, Scottish and Canadian researchers used sophisticated computer models to confirm a human contribution to more intense precipitation extremes with very high confidence.
This analysis is supported by a 2010 Duke University-led study that found, “Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse.”
A study published in the 2011 Journal of Climate presents “evidence of a significant human influence on the increasing severity of extremely warm nights and decreasing severity of extremely cold days and nights.”
Likewise, a report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate Central, The Weather Channel, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that “if temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead … record high temperatures far outpace record lows across the U.S.”
The recent extreme weather should not be a surprise. In 1999, Trenberth projected that global warming would lead to severe precipitation.

An increase in heavy precipitation events should be a primary manifestation of the climate change that accompanies increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Nine years later, the U.S. Climate Change Program under President George W. Bush came to a very similar conclusion. “Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense. Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions.” These are some of the extreme weather events we experienced this April, and in 2010.
Because we have not brought carbon pollution under control, the weather events of 2010 will continue to revisit us—with a vengeance. We must act quickly and unequivocally to address climate change before the threat becomes insurmountable. This includes recognizing that global warming is already affecting us both domestically and internationally.
The purpose of this report is to gather, condense, and synthesize some of the massive amount of data about extreme weather and its links to global warming. This summary of climate science can help provide context to the recent surge in extreme weather events. In this report we will catalogue the extreme U.S. weather in 2010 and then examine the consequences on our health and economy.
As we note in the conclusion, conservatives remain eager to dismiss these weather extremes by claiming they are solely due to natural variability. What’s more, the House of Representatives voted to defund federal science programs that gather and analyze the data essential to understand changes in global weather patterns and other climate impacts. But all this denial cannot make this threat disappear. We must act before cruel Aprils occur every month.

Download this report (pdf)
Download the introduction and summary (pdf)
Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy, Valeri Vasquez is a Special Assistant for Energy Policy, and Ben Kaldunski is a former intern with the Energy Team at American Progress.  The authors thank Dr. Heidi Cullen, CAPAF Senior Fellow Dr. Joseph Romm, and CAPAF Think Progress Climate Editor Brad Johnson.
See also:

• Interactive Map: Extreme Weather Across the Nation by Valeri Vasquez and Ben Kaldunski

Related Posts:

• Tennessee Valley Authority: “We have never experienced such a major weather event in our history”
• Masters: Midwest deluge enhanced by near-record Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures
• Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding