Assuming the typhoon was finally upon us, I looked outside. But I didn't see much. Half an hour later, I started to hear that whistle unique to high winds heard through glass windows. I looked outside again, and sure enough, things were starting to sway a bit. Nearly microscopic droplets of water in the millions were flying across the black roadway in silver sheets. Still, things weren't looking worthy of a "duck and cover," so I went back to bed for a while.
An hour or so later, when we were all up, I ventured down the hallway of the hotel, toward the door that faces the seawall. I was actually just on a quest for some Sweet & Low, but I got distracted by the sight of sea spray and cranky looking waves. The view from this doorway window was VERY different from the view we got through our hotel room window. I included a short clip below. It's not very impressive until you consider the sound of the wind is being heard from behind glass and steel.
This much shorter video was taken legitimately outdoors. :-P
I got the video while I went to throw a stinky diaper in the outdoor trash can. Right before I hit record, I (all 1** pounds of me) got knocked back by a gust of wind. I was genuinely, borderline concerned-ish for my safety. Thus the short length of the clip.
We spent a few hours going stir crazy indoors, at the request of base higher ups and hotel staff.
But after those few hours of wind and rain (not even that much rain, really), things died down and life became business as usual again.
Tomorrow we start our 4 days of training. Everything from how not to offend the Japanese to how not to crash your vehicle driving on the left side of the street. What has me most nervous right now, is the fact Aria is going to be spending all day in daycare with people I haven't met. Reputable as this place may be, I am still terrified. Not that I am attached to my little girl or anything. Luckily Hubby is calming me down by impatiently sighing and rolling his eyes, saying things like "stooooop!" and "relax!" Lucky for him I know that's his own brand of comforting reassurance. ;)
The sounds are much like your first typhoon experience in Okinawa when the rain filled our upstairs bathroom until Nancy unplugged the drain. My fault, I left the window open.
ReplyDeleteI remember a typhoon in Okinawa when Cecil was gone, of course along with all the other men and the base took a direct hit. The rain came through the window sill so bad that I didn't have time to spin the towels dry in the washer before the other group of towels on the window sill was dripping down the wall and collecting on the bedroom floor and running out into the hallway. Went like this for 6-10 hrs. After a 15 minute or so respite with calm sunny weather, things really got interesting with the very wicked rain and wind from the opposite direction for another 6-10 hrs. The playground that you used to play in was a big deep puddle almost as large and deep as a child's swimming pool. We took a few days to get everything dry using fans and clothes dryers. The children's swimming hole disappeared in about 2 days. Virginia was never as hot and muggy when compared to the extreme heat and wet air that typhoon brought in. I lucked out and the base did not lose electricity. But off base did for awhile. I suggest when you get your house off base that you buy a case of MREs for each of you. They used to come with a way to heat up the food. They have something like 12 meals per case. Also you might have a couple of cases of water for each of you especially since MREs are(at least were) freeze dried food and need to be reconstituted with water. The guys returned after everything was dry and back to normal and wondered why we, the left behinders, were so grumpy. From what I understand Okinawa really got hit with your typhoon and had a lot of damage. I haven't heard how it was on base but off base there were massive power outages. Something to think about when house hunting make sure it doesn't slide down a hill while you are in it when a very bad storm happens and don't expect your hubby to be with you. He will probably be working or will have floated away.
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