French Polynesia Hit By Cyclone!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35235653/ns/weather/
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A cyclone with winds reaching around 120 mph hit French Polynesia on Thursday. Thousands of people had to be evacuated in order to avoid being swept under by rising storm surges. The 120 mph winds would put this cyclone under the Category 3 category. 50 homes collapsed in French Polynesia while injuries were reported from Bora Bora as well.

One manlady, Magali Charbonneau, (I have no idea if this is a man or woman's name), the senior adviser to the region's top French official, predicted waves to reach as high as 26 feet. He/she advised that civilians stay inside. In addition to the 50 collapsed homes, many more were damaged and left without power. Many tourists had to be housed in hotels and churches.
They expect the cyclone to intensify over the next day or two. Charbonneau's prediction of 26 feet is a little much considering that Category 3 storms have on average between 9 and 12 feet of storm surge water.

When I saw this article, I was like, "oh this is horrible!" Even though a cyclone is very different from an earthquake, I was initially afraid that something bad could happen to the residents of the Bora Bora/French Polynesia area, just like the people of Haiti. Then I was like "where the heck is this place?" and I looked it up and it's right here:



It seems to be in the middle of nowhere of the Pacific Ocean. But fortunately, they prepared and evacuated ahead of time and would guess people are okay. I wasn't able to find any other reports post-cyclone, so I'm assuming the result wasn't really news worthy. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't care, just for the record. I don't want a situation like last time where some dude from the Philippines commented on my current events and corrected me on what I read and wrote, even though none of us had any idea who he was.