The Eye of the Typhoon

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The eye of the typhoon really is still and silent. Roaring, pounding 65-knot (120km/h) winds just stop. The continuous rain stops and the place goes quiet. Eerie quiet. The dogs eventually find the courage to bark to each other, as people climb into cars or walk quickly to the convenience stores. Colleagues correctly warned me to resist the temptation to venture outside, because this is a short lived quiet before the wind begins again. This is the halfway point, wedged between the strongest winds and heaviest rain, as the typhoon progresses over Okinawa and on towards the mainland.

Typhoons are hurricanes and are also cyclones. The name depends on which ocean the winds of 119 km/hour are blowing over. When the wind gusts pass 241 km/hour then the honorific of “super typhoon” is applied. Three or four typhoons make landfall on Okinawa every year, and I have been lucky enough to sit safely through two – Neoguri and Vongfong, both big beasties. Two others passed by Okinawa. Close enough to cause cancellations of exciting events, deliver hours of unabating rain and provoke seas so unpredictable that they washed away three American airmen.

In the Philippines, typhoons regularly cause the death of around a thousand people, with over 5000 killed in Tropical Storm Thelma in 1991. The story is quite different in Japan, where typhoons mean inconvenience and property damage, not devastation and huge loss of life. Kadena Base (United States Air Force) issues detailed warnings before, during and after typhoons via a website that serves all English speaking residents, and Uruma City Council magically send special disaster warning messages to every mobile phone in the area. People here are well prepared.

Traditionally, Okinawans build their homes and settlements in gullies sheltered from typhoons coming off the Pacific Ocean. Beach fronts and low-lying land is reserved for the mausoleums. Okinawan buildings are made to withstand 100-knot (180 km/h) wind gusts – blocky and no frills, with bars on exposed windows to keep flying debris, not criminals out. Fishing fleet boats are all put on trailers and parked at the docks, huddled together for safety.

Preparation begins in Okinawa well before the typhoons arrive, with businesses bringing in decorations and banners, weighing signposts down with concrete blocks and moving stock away from large glass windows. The local car yard parks all the small cars behind a ring of big trucks and our gardener at work wraps the pot plants in blue shade cloth coats. I bring my bicycle, hose and washing poles inside off my balcony and lock the windows shut.

During the typhoons, staying inside is the only option, so I make myself comfortable with a good book or two, pots of coffee and the luxury of not having anything else to do. Colleagues with young children brace themselves with a stronger beverage, seek out novel ways to distract frightened children from the roaring winds and hope that the electricity remains, so Disney can work its magic. The stables flooded during Vongfong, and Erena, on typhoon duty, spent 10 hours sweeping water and sodden bedding out with a broom.

Clean up crews begin work immediately the winds die down, but only after stopping off at Mos Burger to pick up some warming take away food. Preventing people from driving through flooded rivers, removing layers of sand and rubble coating roads, and scooping up trees and rubbish that accumulate after the winds are all part of the task. Sugar cane stands itself up again over the course of two or three days, some crops appear unharmed while others are shredded, shriveled and burnt. The usually calm turquoise waters are frothy surfers playgrounds.

Then the sun and paradise-calm returns, as if nothing untoward has happened.

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Comments

[trees]

I always wonderef what the difference if any there was between cyclone etc were ..now I know. Mother nature can sure didh out some weather! Glad it has passed. Im home in oz now : )

[Enid]

typhoon
Hi Jacinta.........belated thanks for the letter etc....I just spent a few days with friends in Bundeena (national park)...........we had what is probably a typhoon....winds up to 160km per hour, and gushing rain......what an experience....trees down all over the place etc etc. Good to hear from you. Things here are going smoothly. Love to you and Toni