Lives in the Lotus Blossom, Chapter 11: The Devil Wind 1--There Can only be One Topic This Week!

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Even though this is my Chapter 11, I'm not going to talk about bankruptcy. Life is quite financially gentle in Taiwan.

The weather is another story. We certainly had our “Krosa” to bear his weekend! Typhoon. Super Typhoon. Krosa.

Here is the story in the Taipei Times, one of a handful of English newspapers over here.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/10/06/2003381904 You will have to copy/paste the link. When you get to the article, click on the photo to make it bigger.

I jotted down some ideas yesterday, as the situation worsened.

The wind backed this morning, an ominous sign. According to the Central Weather Bureau’s plot of the typhoon’s path, we are well within the projected 120 km radius of the maximum wind velocity. The situation has worsened in the last 30 minutes. The wind has gone from interesting to screaming, the power and ADSL are gone, and we hear sirens from fire trucks and ambulances all over the place. I hope that the building janitor, who left early, got home safely. I took a snap of her trying to get her motorbike going. From the rooftop, we can see the surf crashing on the distant shoreline. I wanted to go out on the deck, but discretion is the better part of valour.

The wind is very warm, too warm. Grit hit my legs like I was getting sand-blasted. We are cooking in the apartment, but we cannot run the fans or air-conditioning with the power off, and we cannot open the windows without getting blown God knows where.

Lao-puo is starting supper early, to have it cooked before it gets too dark to do anything on the gas burner. On the bright side, it will be too dark to do the dishes as well. This particular typhoon is very slow-moving, and it will likely cause a lot of damage. So the news said, anyway.

The outer front door to our apartment is a shatterproof sheet of glass, and the inner door is a steel plate that would stop an anti-tank rocket. Folk are very security-conscious over here, even though violent crime is very rare. The emergency light is on the corridor—there are only two apartments on our section of the floor, It’s on the blink, and I had to go downstairs to the parking level to put my driving licence back in the bike. It was a psychedelic strobe show until I got to the lobby, where there was a party going on. Chinese are right sociable folk. Downstairs, the carpark is as black as sin with the power gone, and it occurs to me that we couldn’t go out in the car even if we wanted to—no juice for the hydraulic lift in our double-decker parking spot.

I will have to do the rest of this by memory when the typhoon is over, because when my battery lets go there is no way to recharge it. I suppose, in a pinch, I could use a pen and paper—or a clay tablet or a papyrus-reed scroll or something.

The wind has died down for the moment, but I know that we will get the old one-two again presently.

Now it’s the next morning. The wind is still strong, and cool again, but the forecast is for heavy rain for the next two days. Normal rain is heavy enough here, so when they say “heavy rain” they’re not kidding.

Lao-puo can take video snips with her digital camera, so she will add a chapter after this.

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Photos

I walk past the Guangfu Township Hall..
...on my way to the train station. On Friday afternoon, the entire staff was outside doing the 'Macarena" with cheerleading pom-poms. I'm not kidding, but it sounds so bizarre I had to take a picture to prove it.

Esmerelda, Tucked Away...
...and typhoon-proofed.

Simple Things are a Struggle when You Can't Read!
This official-looking notice beside our parking spot alerts everyone to be careful not to open both the entrance and exit doors when using the remote control.

Typhoon Wind
I took this picture before it really started blowing hard.

I hope the Janitor Got Home OK!
It was getting really nasty as she was leaving.

Sometimes, Hualien Blows Lao-puo Away!
It was getting uncomfortable to be outside at this point.