Over the last week my students as well as the media have been buzzing about the possibility of a large typhoon hitting my island Kyushu. As I understand it, typhoons are what we call cyclones in Australasia and the Japanese have this weather system very frequently each year. This one, called number fourteen by meteorologists here (typhoons are numbered each year rather than named), developed to a huge size in the Pacific Ocean south of Japan before making landfall. There was a lot of trepidation regarding number fourteen as we were constantly reminded on the news it would be larger, although not stronger than Hurricane Katrina which has created so
much havoc in the United States.
Having never experienced a typhoon I was unsure what to expect, short of a possible day off work due to disruptions in transport they generally caused. The day before the typhoon was scheduled to arrive though I was given several insights.
The students I talked to said they were boarding up windows and buying sheets of tarpaulin in case their tiled roofs were blown off in the storm. When I went to the supermarket it was packed with hundreds of people stocking up on supplies for the next few days. And as I walked home the wind was starting to get up and my umbrella broke. It was going to be an interesting experience and the only disappointment at this stage was the fact that I didn't have work the next day and it was pretty clear I'd be confined to my apartment.
The typhoon reached land on Tuesday and moved slowly north towards Kitakyushu at about 20 km per hour, hitting Kokura where I live at about midday. The wind was strong but didn't seem any stronger than what you might get on a bad day in Wellington. It rained very hard though and soon the trains and monorail system were stopped. Most of my friends got a day off work as did thousands of schoolchildren around the city. The rain was heavy and the apartment was moving around a bit in the wind but it wasn't too frightening. My roommate Ashley and I waited for the eye of the storm to make a quick dash to the video store to alleviate our boredom. We got very wet but it wasn't too dangerous at that stage. We did't see much damage around the streets and after we'd watched a few videos later that night it all seemed to be over by about 10pm.
It would be fair to say that after all the buildup the typhoon seemed a bit of a non-event . However I discovered later that the typhoon had created more chaos in other areas of Kyushu. Record rainfall resulted in landslides and flooding in more rural areas, and led to widespread evacuations around the island. The winds got up to 125 km/hr in some places and damaged or destroyed many homes and businesses. At the time of writing there were five people confirmed dead and twenty or so people still missing. As the cleanup begins today I guess we can be thankful that our city did not bear the full brunt of the storm and that there was only light damage here.
much havoc in the United States.
Having never experienced a typhoon I was unsure what to expect, short of a possible day off work due to disruptions in transport they generally caused. The day before the typhoon was scheduled to arrive though I was given several insights.
The students I talked to said they were boarding up windows and buying sheets of tarpaulin in case their tiled roofs were blown off in the storm. When I went to the supermarket it was packed with hundreds of people stocking up on supplies for the next few days. And as I walked home the wind was starting to get up and my umbrella broke. It was going to be an interesting experience and the only disappointment at this stage was the fact that I didn't have work the next day and it was pretty clear I'd be confined to my apartment.
The typhoon reached land on Tuesday and moved slowly north towards Kitakyushu at about 20 km per hour, hitting Kokura where I live at about midday. The wind was strong but didn't seem any stronger than what you might get on a bad day in Wellington. It rained very hard though and soon the trains and monorail system were stopped. Most of my friends got a day off work as did thousands of schoolchildren around the city. The rain was heavy and the apartment was moving around a bit in the wind but it wasn't too frightening. My roommate Ashley and I waited for the eye of the storm to make a quick dash to the video store to alleviate our boredom. We got very wet but it wasn't too dangerous at that stage. We did't see much damage around the streets and after we'd watched a few videos later that night it all seemed to be over by about 10pm.
It would be fair to say that after all the buildup the typhoon seemed a bit of a non-event . However I discovered later that the typhoon had created more chaos in other areas of Kyushu. Record rainfall resulted in landslides and flooding in more rural areas, and led to widespread evacuations around the island. The winds got up to 125 km/hr in some places and damaged or destroyed many homes and businesses. At the time of writing there were five people confirmed dead and twenty or so people still missing. As the cleanup begins today I guess we can be thankful that our city did not bear the full brunt of the storm and that there was only light damage here.
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