We begin this week with a report of disaster preparedness that rallied quickly as a super typhoon in the South China Sea was bearing down on the Philippines on the 8th of November. Emergency amateur frequencies in the region were cleared for the Philippine Amateur Radio Association and others to use for traffic. The association's operators were among those engaged by the Philippine National Telecommunications Commission to help government responders, especially in those regions where communication connections had been destroyed by the powerful storm, known internationally as Fung-wong.

The death toll kept rising and more than a million people were displaced in the archipelago nation as floods and landslides took over much of the landscape in the northern provinces. Sustained winds were reported at up to 185 km/h, or 115 mph, with gusts of as much as 230 km/h or 143 mph.

Amateur radio has traditionally been a part of disaster response and the recovery process.