Escaping Typhoon Haiyan was a miracle, says Stourbridge travel worker
[gallery] After escaping unscathed from a 'terrifying' six hours alone as his flat was lashed by Typhoon Haiyan, Tom Gore could have been forgiven for taking up his bosses' offer to fly him straight home afterwards.
But instead the 23-year-old from Stourbridge set about mucking in with his fellow colleagues to help scores of people left homeless and hungry.
Tom says it was a 'miracle' that he and around 80 colleagues in the city of Tacloban, in the hardest-hit Leyte province of the Philippines, escaped with their lives.
But he added: "A lot of their houses were totally destroyed and they lost everything.
"Since the first day after the typhoon we have sheltered about 50 people in our offices in Tacloban and having been buying food and medical supplies for them, as well as taking it out to the villages to help other people."
Tom was awoken at 3am by howling wind as the typhoon approached and it got worse, with the storm at its height from 6am to 10am.
"It was pretty terrifying," he said. "The wind was so loud and the rain so heavy I could hear glass breaking.
"A tree flew into my wall – at any other angle it would have gone through the window. At first I was texting people – but the storm suddenly caused a blackout and the phone lines went down."
The former student at Redhill School, in Stourbridge, and Halesowen College, who later earned a first class degree in history at Manchester Metropolitan University, said it was a 'crazy scene' after the storm. Tom works for Manchester-based Kaya Responsible Travel, which offers people the chance to get work experience overseas and volunteer for projects. With the threat of cholera mounting in Tacloban, he and his workmates eventually relocated to the island city of Cebu.
There he will be on hand to help with interviews to recruit 100 volunteers to help rebuild devastated areas.
But then he plans to return to the stricken area to carry on the relief effort. If his own experience was frightening, it was even worse for his family back in Heath Street, Stourb idge.
His mother Judy, aged 55, said: "For a long time we did not know if he was alive or dead.
"Finally we got a message through saying he was safe and well. I cannot describe the relief of that message."
More than 4,000 people are believed to have been killed in the storm and around 1,200 are still missing.
