The Philippines endures an average of about 20 major storms a year, many of them deadly.
Typhoons and tropical storms are common in the Philippines, which gets about 20 major storms a year, but they do not often slam into Mindanao the way this storm did, destroying thousands of houses and washing out roads and bridges.
Mulvane, Kansas Eric: I'd missed out on a major storm outbreak a few days earlier because I had to prepare for a conference, and I felt like I needed a decent chase to make up for it.
"The city should be proud of the project," says Klaus Jacob, an esteemed climate scientist at Columbia University, who predicted the impact of a major storm just a year before Sandy arrived.
Larry Penny, the director of natural resources for East Hampton, said the Montauk downtown was now so vulnerable that a major storm of a magnitude last seen in 1993 could undermine shoreline businesses and inundate downtown streets.
But with sunny weather over much of the state on Sunday, the idea of a major storm seemed an ocean away to most residents.
Created by the onetime bubblegum pop star Shaun Cassidy, "Invasion" uses the yellow overcast of a major storm to an aptly eerie effect.
The Philippines suffered its second major storm in a week as Super Typhoon Haima made landfall Wednesday, reportedly destroying or damaging nearly every home in Tuguegarao City, a northeastern city of about 153,000 people. .
Joaquin was gaining strength in the central Bahamas and forecasters said it was likely to grow into a major storm, while following a path that would near the US east coast by the weekend.
Following a major storm there is often a rush to donate money and supplies while volunteers, organized by churches, schools, and first responder organizations like the Red Cross parachute into affected areas.
