First let me wish our HK-based dopers good luck with the forthcoming typhoon - it looks like a monster, and I’m guessing if it hits it’ll be a T9 or T10*, which is something I never experienced.
I know they’re dangerous, they cause damage, and occasionally and tragically people lose their homes or worse, but I have to say, I really loved typhoons when I was there.
The T3 signal would go up and everyone would start checking the weather reports every few minutes. Once the T8 signal is hoisted, the city closes down, and everyone rushes home. I lived on one of the outlying islands, so there was an exicted rush to get to the ferry (via the supermarket before it closed to pick up beer), which would usually be a rather “exciting” journey. We’d then go home and have a typhoon party.
I sat in my house and watched corrugated iron sheets blow off the roof of a nearby building and whizz down the street like frisbees.
Another time I sat on the top floor of a Yung Shue Wan restaurant eating Nachos Grande while we watched a huge container ship break its moorings and go careening around the harbour before being snagged by a very brave marine police launch.
The South China Sea is usually quite calm, but the surf was definitely up when a typhoon came to town. Once we went body surfing in the middle of a typhoon, and the crashing sea disturbed a bag, which washed ashore. It stank of rotting flesh, and someone felt the bag - it felt like a human head. The cops were called and they removed the bag to the police station. They got the police cadet to open it up (the bastards), which he did with much trepidation - inside was a durian.
Signals are as follows: T1 (typhoon watch); T3 (winds picking up); T8 (typhoon near, businesses close, transportation starts to discontinue); T9 (severe weather); T10 (direct hit).
Thanks for the thoughts, jjimm. Yep, I’m sure us Hong Kong dopers (there’re quite a few of us now aren’t there?) are packed quite nicely into our cubicle apartments. I love typhoons too (no classes :D) but I think this is gonna be a big one.
It’s currently a T8; the winds are reasonably strong in my area at the moment (I’m fairly inland), but it’ll get more severe in a couple of hours. They say this one is stronger than the usual ones that hit in the summer since it’s a ‘double-eyed storm’ (it has two centres). But I doubt that it’s going to hit us directly - since that’s pretty rare. It did cause havoc in Taiwan, but I don’t know of any fatalities yet.
I;ve got some friends living on the outlying islands and they’re gonna have it tough for tonight and tomorrow, so I’m a bit concerned for them at the moment. But everything should be alright. We’ve got a good infrastructure in place
I’ve never had a typhoon-party (we did go for a walk in a T9, though), but I’m up for one now. I’ve got food, drinks, movies and an apartment… just need some mates
Be careful in the city though - I did hear of someone getting impaled on a bit of bamboo scaffolding that was ripped off a building site and shot down the street like a spear.
Well, a quick update: the observatory just increased it to a T9 and they aren’t ruling out the possibility of a direct hit, or a T10, in the next couple of hours.
Strange, Cerowyn, I always thought you guys got the good ones! Or maybe whenever there’s a typhoon near Japan, our news station just shows a pre-recorded, devastatingly windy scene in downtown Tokyo from a past typhoon.
I am enjoying it myself. It’s really not that bad for me since I live up north; just a nice storm. There’s really no danger to me in my third-floor (plus parking) apartment. Wonder what the effects will be like tomorrow, though. Hope I can at least get something to eat as I don’t have a bite in the house. The bakery was in the process of getting bought out when I showed up to get my “dinner.”
Hmm… this is my second typhoon and the first one of note. It has gone ominiously quiet outside which I am guessing means that Im currently in the eye of the storm. Good luck to all HKers and I hope nobody suffers any serious damage. (and probably no uni tomorrow!)
There’s a restaurant near my place which I can see through my living room window. Anyway, around ten minutes ago we heard a loud THUD, so I looked out the window and saw two men trying to pick up the restaurant’s (looks like a glass…) front door and move it inside.
jjimm: Only in HK would you see a durian floating around near a beach. Yuck. They need to be genetically engineered out of existence, somehow.
Just not when they’re in black sacks looking like decapitated heads.
Shalmanese, if you were in the eye, you’d know about it due to what’s come before it. The typhoon’s not due until “lunchtime”. What you’re in is “the calm before the storm”.
Stay away from hillsides - most people who died in typhoons when I lived there did so in landslides.
And don’t even think about getting a taxi. In a typhoon, a friend managed to get one from Central to Causeway Bay, and he demanded $1,000 dollars. She only had a $500 note, which he grabbed out of her hand, and when she tried to get it back he punched her in the face and gave her a black eye.
It’s 10.19pm our time and where I am (Central) the rain is feeble - drizzle - and there’s not much wind, unless you count the after effects of the home-made humous I had for dinner. But this is on the leeward side of the island, and all the skyscrapers dampen the wind. I wouldn’t want to be out at sea.
Typhoon Krovanh last week was a big let-down (covered in my blog Aug 25 entry, if it’s acceptable to be uncool and plug it, ahem…). So far, this seems pretty lame too, but looking at the satellite photos, it looks potentially nasty. Big, tight bundle of depression in the middle. News footage from Taiwan yesterday showed a medium size cargo ship being tossed around like a rubber duck in a bathtub.
Anyway - we’re all wimps these days. Everyone left work at 1pm, though the T8 signal wasn’t forecast for 2 more hours. Lots of early boozing in Lan Kwai Fong. A bit of mild panic-buying in the supermarkets - we just LOVE an excuse to go crazy and snatch everything off the shelves. I’m indoors with a 6 pack of something called Cascade Premium Lager from Oz.
Well shit, looks like it was within a couple of miles of being a direct hit. The news reports are saying “biggest typhoon for 24 years”. The previous one was where a container ship was plucked from the harbour and dumped a couple of blocks into the city streets…
Boring… Number 8 signal pulled down at 3am, so we have to go to work.
The thing crossed the coast east of HK and promptly lost much of its force - though a few trees went down and so on. The eye of the storm apparently crossed Shenzhen around 10-11pm, so that’s pretty close. Where I was it didn’t even seem to rain much.
green bladder - we actually had a mini dopefest a year or so ago - 4 of us, including one doper passing through from Japan.
Everything’s fine and dandy. Everyone went to work today. After the ‘glass door’ incident the winds died down pretty quickly in my area. Kinda boring actually, we all expected more. Too bad about Shenzhen, though, 23 people killed.
