[GentleBen]

Well, looking at the track the storm took on the Hong Kong Observatory site, the eye of the storm stayed well north of the island that Tim is on. While he still was hit with high winds and storm surge it is not as bad as passing in and out of the storm center.

In all probability he was hit between 6 and 10 feet of surge and his house has, at best, only 3 feet (actually 1 meter) of sea wall. Accordingly, his entire house could have been swept out to sea. Since we do not know if he took the prudent course and went to the same shelter as his family or if he attempted to secure his house we can only wait until he either comes back on the net or until someone can contact him. However, reports are showing that the cell infrastructure took major damage (towers down all over the place) so it may be a while before we can hear from him.

For those people looking to head to the Philippines to assist in the recovery (especially Dixievette) let us know if additional financial support is needed and we will see if we can scrounge up a few more bucks to go with the Christmas funds. Looks like the urchins are really going to need some cheering up this year.