Repeat Storm Surge Disasters of Typhoon Haiyan and Its 1897 Predecessor in the Philippines

Abstract

On 8 November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan impacted the Philippines with estimated winds of approximately 314 km h-1 and an associated 5–7-m-high storm surge that struck Tacloban City and the surrounding coast of the shallow, funnel-shaped San Pedro Bay. Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people, superseding Tropical Storm Thelma of November 1991 as the deadliest typhoon in the Philippines. Globally, it was the deadliest tropical cyclone since Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008. Here, we use field measurements, eyewitness accounts, and video recordings to corroborate numerical simulations and to characterize the extremely high velocity flooding caused by the Typhoon Haiyan storm surge in both San Pedro Bay and on the more open Pacific Ocean coast. We then compare the surge heights from Typhoon Haiyan with historical records of an unnamed typhoon that took a similar path of destruction in October 1897 (Ty 1897) but which was less intense, smaller, and moved more slowly. The Haiyan surge was about twice the height of the 1897 event in San Pedro Bay, but the two storm surges had similar heights on the open Pacific coast. Until stronger prehistoric events are explored, these two storm surges serve as worst-case scenarios for this region. This study highlights that rare but disastrous events should be carefully evaluated in the context of enhancing community-based disaster risk awareness, planning, and response.

Block and boulder transport in Eastern Samar (Philippines) during Supertyphoon Haiyan

“…The size of individual clasts and in particular the dimensions of block ESA 9 (9.0 × 4.5 × 3.5 m 3 ), in combination with the documented vertical and lateral transport distances, exceeds any existing literature account, including the often-cited boulder at Sydney's Bondi Beach (Süssmilch, 1912;6.1 × 4.9 × 3.0 m 3 ), and clasts moved during TCs in Japan (Goto et al, 2011) and Jamaica (Khan et al, 2010) as well as during Atlantic winter storms (Williams and Hall, 2004;Regnauld et al, 2010;Cox et al, 2012) (Tables 1, 2). According to the pedestal found at its pre-Haiyan position, block ESA 9 was stationary for a considerable period of time prior to Typhoon Haiyan (cf.…”

“…For the block at Bondi Beach the original source gives a weight of "about 235 t" (Süssmilch, 1912, p. 155), whereas multiplication of axes and local rock density of ca. 2.35 g cm −3 (Süssmilch, 1912;Verhoef, 1993) reveals only 211 t. Furthermore, questions about the reliability of the report on the storm wave transport in 1912 have been raised, citing pre-1912 photographs of the boulder in its present position (Cass, 2002;Scheffers et al, 2008 (Süssmilch, 2012); often cited as an example for largest coastal boulder dimensions observed to have been moved during a storm (Felton and Crook, 2003;Switzer and Burston, 2010;Terry et al, 2013); values of dimensions and ρ b were taken from the original source (Süssmilch, 1912); a correction factor of 0.8 derived from recent photography (Boyson, 2012;Google Earth/Digital Globe, 2015) of the boulder was applied for calculation of V corr . (Goto et al, 2011 (Regnauld et al, 2010).…”

Factors responsible for the limited inland extent of sand deposits on Leyte Island during 2013 Typhoon Haiyan

“…[] modeled the wave field during Typhoon Haiyan and Soria et al . [] simulated wave fields during both Typhoon Haiyan and the typhoon that hit the same area in the year 1897. As shown by Roeber and Bricker [], there is a possibility that surf beat may have an effect on runup and damage along steep (reef‐type) coasts, and that phase‐averaged wave models such as SWAN cannot simulate this phenomenon well.…”

Geological and Sedimentological Evidence of a Large Tsunami Occurring ~1100 Year BP from a Small Coastal Lake along the Bay of La Paz in Baja California Sur, Mexico

“…However, this is not a definitive distinguishing feature, as evidenced by the extremely short periods (0.5-1 h) of peak flooding documented for the fast moving Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 [72]. Although a tropical cyclone cannot be eliminated as a candidate process, it would likely have required an unusually large and/or intense storm on a fortuitously-positioned track to generate sufficient energy to transport the anomalous marine material found in Areas A-C.…”