Typhoon Jangmi
Well, I wasn’t planning to post about this typhoon – we’ve had a busy season this year, and they’re starting to get a bit old. Besides, this one was predicted to hit Kaoshiung (on the south west coast) and then move on into China.
Unfortunately, it veered north, and the center of the storm is currently (Sun 9/28 6pm) passing through Taipei county, and we have massive amounts of water leaking under our front door. The photo at right is 2pm, and you can still just see a bit of Taiwan between the outer band and the main cloud wall.
I was quite proud of my ‘storm guard’ that I put up during the last typhoon, but it’s 
not much good for the winds we’ve had today. The rain pounds into the door, then runs down and leaks into the house. We’ve tried several fixes, but the concrete is old and the door frame is rusting out, so nothing short of a complete re-fit of the door is going to help much. For overnight, we put the shoe rack & cabinet up on blocks, and then just tried to clean up every couple of hours. Fortunately, there’s a silly teaboy living here who thinks it’s a lot of fun to mop the floor!
We also have water leaking into our upstairs bedroom. The wind literally 
pushes the water through the walls (remember it’s a concrete house), and it runs down along conduit piping in the walls. These photos show the condition of our carpet. The stains on the wall are from moss and fungus that grows on the damp concrete. We’ve sealed the interior wall, which helps some, but the exterior needs to be completely re-done and our landlord won’t spend the money, so we just have to deal with it.
The really good new is they’ve just announced school and office closures for tomorrow (Monday), so we get the day off. That means I’ll have another late night tea session, and maybe do some calligraphy. (I’ll also write up Part II of my Teapot Cleaning post).
November 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Salsero Says:
I have the impression that Pacific Typhoons don’t cause nearly as much loss of property and life as do Atlantic Hurricanes. Do you know if this is the because the Typhoons are less intense, I am just wrong, or buildings are more storm resistant in Asia than in the SE United States.
Sorry to be off strictly tea topic, but I hear about the Typhoons so often and people seem to just take them in stride there more than here.
Nice blog, BTW. I will have to add it to my RSS feed!
November 12th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
teaguy Says:
Thanks for the comments. Since this post is specifically about typhoons, your questions are right on the mark.
In answer to your questions, I’d have to say, “all of the above.” What we classify a class 1 typhoon would only be a tropical storm by US weather standards, so we get a fair number of ‘weaker’ storms each season. Loss of property and life depends on where the storm hits. A typhoon can go through the Philippines, wipe out whole villages and kill a few hundred people, then come to Taiwan and maybe 1 or 2 people end up getting killed.
To borrow from the 3 pigs, manhy parts of Philippines/Caribbean build with light materials – even villages of thatched huts in some areas – while US mostly uses wood frames. Taiwan, on the other hand, relies heavily on concrete. Also, Taiwan has steep mountains on the eastern coast, which absorb and deflect a large amount of the wind energy, while the southern US coast is pretty flat, so the storm hits land with more force.
Even big storms here don’t blow out windows or take roofs off of houses, so, yeah, people in city areas mostly enjoy the day off, although flooding and landslides are major problems in the countryside.
Sorry for the long reply, but I LOVE to talk about Taiwan almost as much as tea! Thank God you didn’t ask a tea question!!!!
Thanks for the kind words, and I hope to hear from you again.