Every time I have asked my teachers about it they seem to laugh at my concern and tell me not to worry. That said I have still scoped out my various evacuation centres even if I don’t have enough water to last me 3 days. I do however have the recommended Skippy peanut butter and 2 tins of fruit.
I have been watching the news, and despite my lack of Japanese I, like George Bush and Julius Malema, can at least understand the pictures. At the moment the typhoon will not hit Oita directly but the outer edges will pass over my prefecture as it heads to Honshu. The bad news is that it looks like it will pass directly over central Japan. So a lot of people are rather scared about the situation. According to Itai-sensei, Japan has not seen a typhoon in 2 years. Still my biggest concern is the potential invitation broken windows would be to the population of 8/100-legged critters that are squatting in my garden.
Here is my blow-by-blow account of my first typhoon (not super exciting but I would rather not be typing from a shelter explaining how my roof collapsed):
6:40
Went to be and all was quite on the Eastern Front. This morning it was raining when I woke up for the 5th time (I hit the snooze a lot). Rain not heavy just continuous and no heavy wind.
7:52 First Typhoon related injury
Slipped on the pavement as I was taking out my burnables in front of one of my neighbours who kept, I think, asking me if I was okay. Not serious harm, asides from my pride, luckily my neighbors recycling cans broke my fall.
8:21
あめはふります。
No change. Rain continues to fall.
10:52
Still raining. Wind is starting to pickup; I can hear it starting to whistle. The typhoon is predicted to hit Honshu at midnight tonight. I have never been happier to be placed in the backwaters of Kyushu.
12:40
Rain has stopped briefly over lunchtime but it is cold and it is miserable.
13:48
The wind is picking up and it is getting gloomy. I keep wondering when it is going to start to get really miserable. It’s a bit disappointing actually.
16:30
The rain stopped about lunchtime but now the wind has started up. It is also getting rather cold, and since I am cold blooded and can’t rely on my body to keep me warm. I don’t think I will be practicing Kyudo this afternoon.
18:25
Kyudo finished early. I am not surprised the wind is howling – but not quite Cape Doctor strength but bad enough.
20:40
The wind has started again and it is hitting all of my windows. It is really ghastly outside. My main concern is what I am going to wake up to tomorrow. Regardless I will still have to go to school.
私はちょうとこわいです。
The Aftermath
So I woke up this morning to nothing. No rain. No wind. Just cold. In fact it was a beautiful sunny day outside. The air is fresh and everything just feels clean. This is apparently typical of typhoons – they wreak havoc and leave you with nice sunny weather for you to clean up in.
It seems that the typhoon altered course a bit and moved further away from Oita, so considering we were only feeling the edges its effects where reduced even further. That said we have been the lucky ones. The typhoon has wreaked havoc on Honshu. From what I have read in the news, 2 people have died and about 50 have been injured. This doesn’t sound like much but when you see the damage it has caused (pics here) you can see it was a pretty nasty storm at the centre. They keep showing images on the news of collapsed bridges, cars that are completely wrecked – covered in mud or floating in water – schools that have lost their roofs. It is a good thing SA doesn’t get them. We can barely handle flooding.
I was a little bit disappointed not to have experienced the full force of Typhoon Melor and I no my students feel as they have been cheated of a day off school but I am glad I was not in the middle.
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