Sunday, September 12, 2010

Surviving Typhoon Kompasu

Being a person who spent a majority of his time living in California, it is safe to say that I have been blessed by wonderful weather for most of my life.  California, northern or southern tends to have wonderful weather that lacks extremes.  At worst we have hot weather or cold weather.  We do not see any hurricanes or tornados.  We do have to deal with wild fires, but to call those a weather phenomenom is a misnomer.  However, given that I currently no longer reside in California as all of you by now know, I was granted the rare privellage of experiencing my first typhoon.  Typhoon Kompasu struck South Korea a week and a half ago, and while it was not strong compared to most typhoons, it was still scary enough.

Being that I have never really experienced anything beyond a major thunderstorm with small cyclonic events, waking up at 4:00 AM with the wind howling was a major surprise.  I knew that the typhoon was coming, but I had heard conflicting reports about how serious it was going to be.  I had gone to bed after winning 50 dollars at poker and figured to wake up the next morning and go to work.  Then the typhoon rolled past our little town and scared the hell out of everyone.  It turns out that Korea was not made to withstand 100 MPH winds and even if it could survive gusts of wind, the sustained winds over the course of an hour or two reeked havoc.  Windows were blown out, signs were knocked over, and trees were ripped apart.  This was a sight and a sound to behold at 4:00 AM.  Needless to say it was scary to hear ripping metal, gusting winds, and just praying that nothing stuck my windows because I was trying to sleep.

It was a frightening experience because of the sheer volume of noise that was being generated.  The sound of ripping metals, snapping tree limbs, and wind made for a cacophony of noise that is quite unlike anything I have ever heard before.  When you add into this an apartment with numerous windows that don't seal all that well you have a perfect storm of noise that will rob anyone of sleep.  After falling back asleep due to being rather exhausted I awoke the next morning to the power being out.  The power was out across our fair town.  I sent a message to my co-teachers to check and see if we had school that day, and was quite surprised to find out that yes school was actually in session, even though nobody had any power.  After taking a cold shower because I could not power my hot water heater I emerged from my apartment for my walk to school.  Needless to say what I saw along the way was quite surprising.  The large apartment tower next to my apartment sustained substantial damage.  At least 30 of the apartments had sustained busted bay windows and glass was strewn about.  All the trees along the way had been shredded of their leaves, and even some building had their facades ripped off by the winds.  It was impressive for lack of a better word.

As I arrived at school, I found my school without power, and the classrooms filled with students and teachers.  Rather surprised at the fact that the school was going to try to function without power I arrived and was informed that we had to teach.  The reason this was so surprising was that is based along the fact that all of our text books are designed to be used with computers and televisions to show the kids what we're doing.  English, even more so than any other subject is designed to be a multimedia experience.  In fact, without a computer it's nearly impossible to use our books.  With this is mind my co-teacher and I walked into our classes and basically player games for the entire period.  Luckily, after two years of teaching, I have several games which I can pull out in an emergency that require nothing besides my voice and willing participation.  The school, in all it's wisdom decided that since there was no power, and therefore no way to provide the students with a lunch, that the kids would leave at noon.  The teachers on the other hand, were required to stay, and not only that, they were required to help clean up the grounds.  This entailed me pushing a wheelbarrow around my school while my other co-teachers piled stuff into it.

Around 1:30 the power came back and the teachers all fled back inside into the wonderful confines of an air conditioned room.  With nothing to do but watch a movie at my desk, I sat out the rest of the day before packing it in and heading home.  Along the walk home I was still surprised at the amount of damage done.  What surprised me even more was when I found out that we had been grazed by the storm.  We were about 30 miles from the center of the storm.  Seoul unfortunately took the storm head on and paid the price for it.  I can offically say that I have now been through my first typhoon.  It was an intense experience, even if it was only a baby typhoon by the time it got to us.