In the middle of a colorless plain of wreckage that was once a barangay of Tacloban there stands a single battered but upright house. You could call the owners lucky because they have a roof over their heads, and a stash of tinned goods that should last them a while. Their neighbors lost everything when Supertyphoon Haiyan — called Yolanda in the Philippines — flattened this city of 200,000 souls on Nov. 7. But Suzy and Oggi Flores, and their children, don’t feel lucky. They feel intensely vulnerable. With nothing left standing around it, the Flores house is horribly, hideously conspicuous. It could not be a more visible advertisement to the gangs that now freely roam the ruins of Tacloban, searching for anything of value. Come and pillage everything we have, it seems to say. Thus the Flores family can do nothing except maintain a state of hypervigilance. “We can’t sleep because of all the gangs that move around at night,” Suzy says, sobbing, as men with picks and hammers prowl through the debris outside. “I’ve heard they enter houses, steal and rape. I’m really worried about my daughter.” (PHOTOS: Typhoon Haiyan Cuts a Path of Destruction Across the Philippines) Feelings of danger and anarchy have begun to hang heavy over Tacloban and its sodden suburbs. On Tuesday, eight people were crushed to death as over a thousand starving survivors looted a government rice warehouse about 17 km away. On Wednesday, there was a firefight between police and armed looters on the city outskirts. Because of the security situation, supplies of food and water are piling up at City Hall. Officials are too afraid to venture out and distribute. Most people of consequence have left the city — some after receiving threats from criminal gangs who want to pick over the property that gets left behind. But in truth almost everyone wants to leave — even those who, like the Flores family, have a roof, food and water. Desperate crowds besiege Tacloban’s “airport” — and it deserves the quote marks, … Continue reading Supertyphoon Haiyan: Getting the Hell Out of Ground Zero