Heavy rains

The typhoon had come and gone.  So Hong Kong was now back to normal.

Well that's what we all thought.

Instead we were all in for a big surprise.  As I prepared for bed one night, I could hear the rain outside.  It had been wet since the typhoon, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  The rain was getting heavier.  I could hear the rain coming down hard.  It was still nothing out of the ordinary.  Heavy rain can be common in Hong Kong, so much so that there's a system of warnings in place at the Hong Kong Observatory to warning people when it gets too much.  I didn't think much of it as I lay in bed and closed my eyes.  I could still hear the heavy rain.  It was actually quite a soothing sound and I was soon asleep.

I woke up to the sound of rain.

I wasn't sure if I had slept.  The rain sounded as heavy as it had been when I had fallen asleep.  I wondered if it was still early or if I had only been asleep a short time.  I looked at my clock.  There was no mistake, I had slept the full night and it was the morning.  I thought that maybe it was just a coincidence that the rain had been at its heaviest when I slept and when I woke.  Strangely, in the back of my mind I did wonder whether the heavy rain had persisted through the night.

I stepped out of bed and looked out the window. 

It hadn't been a coincidence.  It had indeed rained heavily all night.  We were to find out later that this had been the heaviest rain that Hong Kong had ever experienced.  It was a once in 500 year event that had completely saturated the city and left flooding all over.  There was reports and videos of landslides, flooded buildings and general mayhem.

By mid morning, the waters had started to recede.  Veronica and I went downstairs to look for food and to investigate our surroundings more thoroughly.  Everywhere there was mess and filth.  The flooding had brought with it all the dust and dirt in the city, and caked it all over the roads and sidewalks.

At one drain, we found the remains of an early morning noodle delivery.  It must have been left in front of a restaurant by the delivery drivers only to be carried away by the flooding that came later.

As we turned the corner, we found the biggest sign yet of the true severity of this event.  The local McDonalds, the store that never closes no matter how bad the typhoon, had been shut down by the flood.  Being in the basement of the building, we could only imagine how bad the flooding downstairs had been.  Many of the shops and buildings in Hong Kong are raised a "step", which is normally more than enough to deal with the usual heavy monsoon rains.

This was a different case altogether, and the flooding had gone above that first step which meant a long and expensive clean up for many of the ground and basement stores throughout the city.

Amazingly, the resilience of this city was such that by the afternoon, I could already hear the rumbling of the trams rolling along the routes that had been flooded only hours earlier.

Super typhoon days

It had been years since we had felt in the "typhoon mood".   There had been a few big ones since Mangkhut, but none of them had seemed to impact the city in the same way.  The shut downs that normally come with the typhoons had been short.  The coming of Typhoon Saola seemed like a return to the old days.  The observatory had been warning about it for days in the lead up, with a direct hit on Hong Kong predicted.  Everyone seemed to be awaiting its arrival with a strange nervous anticipation.  It was hitting on Friday and there seemed to be a city wide assumption and agreement that there would be no work done that day.  When the T10 was raised Thursday evening, no one was surprised and everyone was already well prepared for the Friday of work from home.  Shops had been cleared out and everyone had stocked up on the essentials for a weekend in.

The storm started to hit and hit hard.  The city was still shutdown, but it seemed to not be too bad outside.  We went out at lunch for some food and we could see some trees had already born the brunt of the winds. 

We were hungry, so we went and partook in some McDonalds.  Even with everything else is closed, McDonalds seems to somehow stay open during the worst typhoons.  I remember also eating McDonalds the last time there was such a big shutdown.

By the afternoon of the next day, it was gone and the city began the assessment of the damage done.

The worst of it hadn't lasted that long, but there was damage everywhere.  It didn't seem too serious, but trees had been felled and there was garbage and debris scattered everywhere.

What was most amazing though was that everything seemed to be restarting already.  Only a few hours had past since the warning signals had been lowered and everyone was already getting on with their lives.  Chainsaws roared everywhere as the clean up crews were busily dealing with the trees.  We had a farewell dinner planned that night for Rachel.  We had been worried it would be cancelled and yet it all still went forward without a hitch.