Typhoon 15
Video Log 9-21-2011: Typhoon 15 (LINK).
Not this way
9/17/2011: It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had my great three-day weekend all planned out. I was going to Naoshima to see some really cool art museums and spend my weekend on an island.
Then, in my infinite wisdom, I didn’t book a place to stay. Frantically I searched on Friday night trying to find accommodations, but there were none. I went to bed dejected, and woke up Saturday morning searching for something to do. Naturally, I texted everyone in my phone.
“Heading to Kumano,” my friend Hadeer El-Hindawi replied, “you can come if you want to.”
I called her. “I’m in. When do we leave?”
In the car, El-Hindawi explained we were traveling to Kumano to deliver food and toiletries, and also check on some JETs in the region. In Nabari, Typhoon 12 was a nuisance. The river rose, and I had cabin fever for a few days. Other than that, things were back to normal.
In the south of Mie, some people were not so lucky.
Debris collected and being transferred to waste sites.
We arrived in Kumano and found a town very different from the cheerful, festive (albeit traffic-infested) place we visited a few weeks ago for the famous Kumano fireworks display (check the video LINK). All roads were passible and, for the most part, buildings were okay. But clearly lots of work had already been done to clean up the town in the wake of Typhoon 12. There were several landslides in the area, and several buildings sustained serious structural damage. Debris had been collected in orderly piles along the road, and cleanup crews were currently working to move the debris to dump areas. One school was forced to volunteer its baseball field as a collection area for typhoon debris.
House with Damaged Roof.
In Kumano, we met Marissa (last name withheld at her request). With the help of Marissa, we headed to a junior high school being used as an evacuation center. Things were quiet, and the staff cheerful. But when we were lead inside to deliver the goods we brought, we saw that some people were still living in the school gym. Futons lay out on the floor and some people sat around chatting; others watched TV. The patrons were mostly elderly.
From there, we went to visit Sarah Gorner and Greg Janes. Janes is a JET in the (very) nearby town of Kiho; Gorner works in Eikaiwa.
“We received six feet of rain in one day,” explained Janes, “Six feet.”
My thought from earlier in the day came back to me: not this way. Typhoons weren’t supposed to be this way. Some rain, maybe some minor flooding. But six feet of rain?
Waste collection. Notice the landslide.
Janes and Gorner recounted their night the typhoon was the worst. Checking weather reports and listening to loudspeaker announcements (in Japanese), the two tried to glean as much information as they could. Eventually, they started moving belongings from the first floor of their house up to the second. They kept their friends updated via social media (until the power went out). At one point, a neighbor suggested to the two that they move their car up the road, “just in case.”
“When the water reached the genkan [entrance], we knew it was time to leave,” Janes recounted. He paused to think and sip his coffee. Then he continued. The couple quickly grabbed some supplies, then headed out into the storm. They entered their car and drove further up the mountain road. Eventually they pulled over and spent the night in their car.
In the morning, they returned to their house to find water marks indicating the first floor flooded with one foot of water. Thanks to their preparation, their only casualties were some tatami matts.
Japanese emergency response teams, including the SDF, arrived quickly. “They sprayed the floor and some of the walls with antibacterial stuff,” explained Janes. “They were really afraid of things starting to mold because of the water.”
Structural Damage
After leaving Janes and Gorner, we delivered some extra supplies to another shelter. Then we soberly left Kumano. On the drive out, I was struck by the destruction. Typhoon 12 claimed 45 people; 55 are still missing. Here, some had to make very real, very dangerous decisions.
Where I was, I had rain. Simply lots of rain.
My trip to Kumano left me with two important ideas. First was the importance of emergency preparation- you just never know. We all have the pamphlets (in English) regarding earthquakes and tsunamis. Have we prepared? The second was how lucky I was that in Nabari, the typhoon was not like this.
But luck will only get you so far.
