What if Typhoon Koppu Was in Florida, Not Philippines?

Major (Category 3 or 4) Typhoon Koppu is forecast to take days to cross the Philippines, dropping at least one to two feet of rain.

I'm very concerned that this storm isn't being taken seriously, even in the Philippines itself.

Consider this for a moment -- the Philippines are about as wide as the Florida Peninsula, so imagine the U.S. media freaking out if a major hurricane were about to do that. As it is, the (non-weather) media at large is ignoring the storm. It sure isn't because of the population numbers -- 100 million people live there, compared to "only" 29 million in Florida! On Google Trends, search activity is up, but nowhere near the levels of typhoons earlier this year. Surprisingly, there are no typhoon-related Twitter trends in the area and only a corn-er-front-page mention in one of the newspapers.

The only saving grace is that Koppu's path puts its "extreme risk" area in one of the least-populated parts of the island nation (although somehow I think a hurricane striking central Florida wouldn't be underhyped in the U.S.) -- but highly populated areas near the capital of Manila are still considered "high risk."