Typhoon Morakot

Well, it is Friday and this is our first "Typhoon Day" of 2009. Morakot is planning to cross the island near the north on Saturday and yesterday it was quite rainy. All the local governments called off work and school for the day today, so we got to sleep in and stay in. It was a chance to watch mostly the wind today, and to hear it shake the frame of the sliding doors every once in a while. All in all, a nice quiet day.

Typhoon Sinlaku

I arrived back in Taichung on Saturday, Sept. 13 after two weeks in the US and two weeks in Korea. Just in time for Typhoon Sinlaku. No real problems in traveling except a little bumpy landing in Taipei. Lots of rain, lots of wind for several days since the storm crossed the island slowly and headed north toward Japan. The only difficulty for us was disruption to flights on Sunday that forced Teresa to leave for the US from Kaohsiung instead of Taipei. 

The storm caused a lot of damage across the island and 11 death. People were killed in mudslides and by one bridge collapse. Crops were damaged mostly by wind. 

My friends in Korea note that there have been many fewer typhoons approaching Korea recently, something they attribute to global warming. Most storms now trend to the east, across Taiwan and into China, as opposed to menacing Japan and Korea.

Typhoon Fung Wong

On Monday July 28, Typhoon Fung Wong came to Taiwan. Since the government was severely criticized for underwhelming the response to the previous typhoon, they went overboard this time. By Sunday night, the entire island had declared Monday as a Typhoon Day. 

Unfortunately for us, we had about 30 people here from all over the world for a business meeting. So after many phone calls back and forth on Sunday night and Monday morning, we decided to proceed. It was still not raining at all when we went to work on Monday morning and our normal 35 min drive took about 15 min with no traffic at all.  We had our meeting as planned, though with less attendance from the local folks who observed the Typhoon Day. Many people left early - Teresa took a taxi home at about 2PM - and had no issues. I left about 5PM, unfortunately just after the rain had started. I got wet getting to my car - and the driver's seat is still drying out - but otherwise had no issues. I had another vision of wild typhoon driving, though no photographer in the passenger seat to document it.

I would have thought (silly of me, I know) that in the pouring rain and wind, drivers would be more careful and polite. It seemed however, that wild and crazy maneuvers got even wilder and crazier. People drove on the wrong side of the road, made left turns from the right lane, and all the things I have come to expect, and then some. I guess this is another cultural difference to ponder.

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.