mr. chairman, senator rubio, senator flake, senator schatz, for giving me this opportunity to testify on i the u.s. government's response y to super typhoon yolanda which o struck the philippines on november 8th. the typhoon, which was, as you know, one of the largest and inf strongest in history, struck the central philippines from the east and carved a swath of destruction across the middle ot the country.the hardest hit were leyte, site of general macarthur's return to the philippines in 1944, sam ars and a series of other islands.ph the typhoon's winds, major storm surge, killed an estimated 4,00e people, left hundreds of thousands of others homeless, pe and devastated cities, towns, e, and villages. even before the storm hit, the u.s. government agencies began n preparing to respond. usaid prepositioned a team in manila. our embassy in manila issued a a message warning american sued a citizens of the storm and urging that they seek shelter. and many of us in washington began to communicateo and coordinate to prepare for n the storm. then once the storm hit, the state department, usaid's office of u.s. disaster, foreign fice o disaster fassistance, t