Riding out the Storms

When you choose to live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it's almost a given that you are also signing up for all sorts of wild weather. We're in the midst of typhoon season here in Okinawa and after a fairly calm June/July/August, we started seeing more typhoons forming that were heading closer to us. Most would start out in the area of Guam and would look like they were heading towards us in the beginning only to veer off towards the mainland or Taiwan. Sometimes we get windy and rainy days as they pass near us and other times we feel nothing. We watch them on the radar apps on our phones and Russ is usually a little disappointed when they start turning away.

At the end of last week they started tracking Typhoon Chaba as it began moving our way. We were told it was heading directly at us and would most likely be classified as a "super typhoon"  (category five) by the time it reached us. By Saturday they started implementing the T-COR levels. Each level indicates how soon the typhoon is expected to hit us and what we should be doing to prepare for it. You can read about them here.  This is what it looked like on the radar.

We were told it would be the worst typhoon to hit Okinawa in 17 years and that we could see winds at 200+ mph. It was classified as a category 5 super typhoon but was later downgraded to a level 4. It was predicted to reach us early Monday morning and by 10:00 a.m. we would begin feeling winds at 40 mph. So after church services on Sunday we began our preparations for the typhoon. First we moved all of our furniture from the balcony and began closing our storm shutters over most of the windows. We left a few open so we could watch it come in and closed them as the winds got stronger.

I filled both bathtubs, my washing machine and laundry tub with water (for flushing toilets). Then grabbed all my pitchers, large pans and bowls and filled them with water.  I had been emptying ice trays all weekend and had a nice supply of ice saved but also filled my metal mixer bowl with water and froze that in case our electric went out. I planned to put that in the refrigerator section to keep the food cool for a few days. A few of Russ's co-workers mentioned that after a typhoon a few years ago they were without water and electric for a week and almost ran out of water so I figured over-prepared was better than under-prepared.

I gathered candles, matches and flashlights and had them on the kitchen table for easy access if the electric went out. We put the refrigerator to the coldest setting so that it would stay cool longer and did the same with the air conditioners. I had the apartment pretty cold by the time the winds began and at one point pulled out a sweater to keep warm.

The biggest difference between hurricanes that hit the US and typhoons hitting Okinawa is that we have nowhere to evacuate to.We have to hunker down and ride out the storms as they come. The Okinawans build very sturdy homes. Most are reinforced concrete. We've been watching the building of three sets of apartments at the end of our road and they built the frame with metal rods and then poured the concrete over the rods to form the walls. It will take a lot of wind pressure to break those walls down. Our apartment is equipped with the storm shutters (pictured above) that slide along a track to cover all of the windows in the front. The other windows have metal bar frames to protect them from the wind. Their electric/telephone/cable poles are also concrete and many of them have a brace between them to keep them stable. Our apartment sits up on a hill overlooking the Pacific ocean.

Russ and I were a little excited to be experiencing our first real typhoon since moving to Okinawa so we wanted to go out and feel the wind. I had fun taking selfies of my hair flying high in the wind.  We went out about every hour to see how much stronger the winds had gotten. By evening they were pretty strong and were pushing me along. I would go to the end of the balcony and hold onto the rail and let the wind gusts hit me. If I'd put my arms in the air I think the wind would have taken my shirt off. I had to hold it down the entire time I was outside. I think some of the gusts on the balcony were probably hitting about 60 mph in the later hours of the evening. We seemed to get the stronger winds on the Pacific side of the island. I was messaging friends on the East China Sea side and they said the winds were pretty mild there. I got a similar report from friends on Kadena. Russ and I walked to the sea wall about 3:30 that afternoon to see how rough the waters were. We knew this was supposed to be low tide but with the rising of the water tables it looked closer to our normal high tide. The waves were crashing against the rocks with a vengeance and the winds felt stronger without the nearby buildings there to block them

 

By mid-morning we were receiving reports that Chaba was moving slightly away from us. Rather than passing directly above us, it would be moving about 70 miles away from us as it passed.  They said we would be spared the strongest part of the winds but that they would directly hit some of our lower islands. The island of Kume was hardest hit with wind gusts up to 134 mph. After the typhoon left us it headed towards Korea with a vengeance. Six people died as a result of the typhoon in Korea, 200 people were left homeless and 229,000 homes were without power. The cities of Busan and Ulsan were the hardest hit as well as a resort island of Jeju. You can see some pictures of the effects of the typhoon in Korea here. 

For us it was a big build up to something super strong but ended up come through fairly mildly leaving the main islands of Okinawa with very little damage. I know many people were praying for us and I truly believe that God heard those prayers and directed the eye of the storm away from us. We got very little rain from it and no flooding. It was fun playing in the wind though.