Typhoon Days

It has been a while since posting, due to mostly work, and a little fun.

On Friday, July 18, we were driving to work a little earlier than usual for an early meeting. We left the house at about 7:15. We knew there was a typhoon coming but had no real understanding of what that meant. Typhoon Kalmaegi (that means seagull in Korean), came with lots of rain. We spent the next hour (7:15 to 8:15) driving from our apartment to about halfway to work and then back again. The rain was unbelievable. Sidewalks (or what usually passes for them) were rivers flowing rapidly. Intersections were mostly lakes. It was not so bad to drive, especially with my Tribute, though probably more dangerous than I knew. It was more interesting to watch the people and cars and scooters. Mostly traffic was not moving, except for the scooters. Luckily, Teresa had her camera and her pictures are posted here.  

Scooters were up to the middle of their wheels. Some scooter drivers tried to stay dry with all their rain gear. Others knew they were getting wet and were in t-shirts and shorts. It was a hoot to watch. The water at some intersections was above the bottom of a small car's doors - keep those doors closed! In several intersections (aka lakes), scooters and a couple cars were stranded, probably stalled out. We finally got to Taichung Gang Rd (the main street to work) and found it blocked and closed by police). That and several phone calls from work colleagues convinced us to head back home and take a "Typhoon day". Apparently, sometime early in the morning, the government had decided the storm was bad and declared a "Typhoon day". This means all schools, offices, and other non-essential functions are closed along with most businesses. Our plant runs 24/7 so some of the shift workers who were there ended up staying for 24 hours to cover for those who could not get there. One problem with the Typhoon day was that the word came late and at least the middle school near us had some school kids already there and parents scrambling to get there to pick up their kids during the height of the rain.

We later heard some of the statistics. The storm delivered a full 1120 mm of rain (44 inches) in 24 hours. And the worst hour of that was 7-8AM (when we were driving) which saw about 140 mm (over 5 inches). About 20 people were killed in the storm on the island, mostly due to mudslides in the mountains.

The government was severely criticized over the following days for being to slow to react and for not alerting the public sooner.