For days Jacki Collyer and her siblings have been waiting by the phone, desperate to hear word from their father Jean-Marc Samycia who is vacationing in the Philippines.
Collyer and her family members haven't heard from Samycia since Wednesday, the day before Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the same region of the country where he is visiting a friend.
"The last we heard from him was on Wednesday when he phoned and told us he was in Degami and that it was getting stormy, but he said they know how to handle it there," Collyer said. "It didn't sound at all like they were aware at all of the magnitude of the typhoon that was coming."
Samycia arrived in the country last week to visit his friend Sylvain Lachapelle who had recently gotten married in the Philippines. The group Samycia was visiting live in Tacloban, the city that's been hardest hit by the storm, but as the typhoon approached the Samycia and his friends had driven to Degami, a smaller city 30 kilometres from Tacloban.
"We don't know if they chose to stay in Dagami or if they went home," Collyer said.
Collyer has been in contact with the the Department of Foreign Affairs and has put her father's name on a list of missing Canadians, but she wishes the federal government was able to take a more active role in the search for its citizens who were caught up in the storm. She's also reached out to Restoring Family Links program through the Red Cross which helps Canadians track down their loved ones stuck in a crisis situation overseas.
Collyer's also been scouring the Internet for any images or videos posted in the hopes she'll catch a glimpse of her father.
"There's pictures of dead bodies and I'm looking to see if it looks like my dad," she said.
So far it's been difficult for Collyer to get any information about the situation in Dagami, if that's where her dad stayed to ride out the storm.
"On the news all you hear about is Tachloban, Tachloban, which I understand, it's a huge city and it got hit first because it's on the coast, but you don't hear anything about any of the other towns at all," she said.
The storm, which included winds of over 300 kilometres per hour and a massive storm serge is believed to have killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. Relief efforts are underway and Collyer has already sent money personally and through her business Shine Salon in College Heights.
Collyer said it's a helpless feeling to wait for news and she and some friends have considered the idea of going over there themselves to try to find her dad.
"I kind of feel numb, part of me wants to be really positive - my dad's personality is that he's so generous and loving and strong and he's kind of got this attitude of being able to stand up to anything and never be destroyed - part of me thinks nothing could have taken him out," she said. "Then the other part of me says, how do you understand a force of nature like that?"
Samycia, who was born in France but moved to Canada at the age of 19, is a retired commercial painter and motel owner in Whitehorse. He had planned an open-ended visit to the Philippines, with a return to Canada possibly some time next month.
In photos posted on Facebook the day before the storm hit, he can be seen digging a ditch, which Collyer said is part of a sewer system in Degami. She said her dad didn't go to the Philippines to relax, he wanted to get involved with the local communities.
"If he is alive out there, he's helping people," she said. "He would be risking his life at that point to help the people around him, the children."
In addition to hoping to hear from her father, Collyer said her thoughts are with all of the people in the Philippines impacted by the massive storm.
Collyer also said she believes the rise in the number of major weather events stem from climate change and she hopes the devastation in the Philippines will shed light on the need for better environmental stewardship both here in Prince George and worldwide.
Anyone wishing to donate to Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts through the Red Cross can do so through a link on the main page of www.redcross.ca or by calling 1-800-418-1111.
Anyone who is missing a relative or loved on in the Phillipines can contact the federal government at 1-800-387-3124.
