Typhoon Krosa: We Got Lucky!

Videos

Typhoon Krosa Clobbers Us!

see larger video

sourced by thenhbushman

HUKOU, HSINCHU COUNTY, Taiwan 

Photos by MJ Klein

The wind howled like I have never
heard it in my life.  The windows held, but water seeped in through
microscopic cracks in the wall, and seams around the windows.  Ominous
sounds emanated from various structures in the neighborhood as the high
winds exposed shoddy construction methods and materials.  Debris flew
through the air creating a very real hazard to life and property. 
Then, almost as suddenly as it began, it was over....

In central Taiwan, bridges are down, rivers have become shaggy white water monsters; in Taipei, several homes have fallen off mountain perches; in Taidong, crops have been severely damaged, and a tornado was spotted.  All over the island there are rock slides, downed trees and branches, and for some time last night, as many as 2,000,000 homes had lost power. 

On Taiwan's east coast in Ilan, excessive wind speeds destroyed the Central Weather Bureau's measurement device.  It failed when wind speeds increased beyond the instrument's capacity of 17 on the Beaufort scale:

17

－

56.1-61.2

109-118

9.蒲福風級（Beaufort scale）？

From the above excerpt, we can see that the wind speed was in excess of 118 knots.

I woke up this morning to calmer winds and significantly reduced rains. I went out and took some photos in our neighborhood: 

This is our neighbor's pigeon coop on the morning after.  Notice the brown
spot to rear of the property (right side of photo). The coop used to
sit on that brown spot.  It got blown down and over the fence and into
the adjoining property, destroying one of the neighbor's water tanks in the
process.

I heard a crash and went up on the roof to see what had happened.  I had
tied down our picnic tables so I knew they were OK. Nevertheless, one
of the tables was actually airborne, held down by the lanyards I had
installed to hold down the umbrellas.  But the tables weren't the
problem.  This tall, home-made pigeon coop had blown over and was
resting at about a 45 degree angle on the fence separating the next
property.  It eventually blew completely over the fence and onto the neighbor's roof.

Closeup of the water tank damage.

We had lost one of the covers on our own water tanks during the last
typhoon.  Now they are a matching set.  I picked up the cover across
the street in the parking lot.  The retaining wire on the tank held
though (on the right hand tank, visible in the large size photo).  The
winds were so strong that the force broke the weld on the cover handle and literally tore it off.  Let me tell you, when I went up to the roof to check things out, it felt like I was being sandblasted by the rain!

While up on the roof checking things out this morning, I noticed 2 new
mountains that I never knew existed since I hadn't seen them before. 
The one cool thing about typhoons is that they really clear the air....

.... but, they trash the streets.  Literally.

What else can you do but drag downed branches to the roadside?

This sign post was bent over like a corn stalk in a crop circle.  I'm officially impressed!

The mud pattern shows that a respectable volume of water had flowed down this street.

And the sewer system confirms that indeed a large volume of water had been
absorbed into the system and was overflowing.  In this shot, the water
at the top of the photo is going out from the sewer system and not
draining into it.  The water level is above the grating.

The real estate office lost their sign, which blew over the top of this
building and landed behind it, next to our car.  The sign then blew all
the way down to the end of this street.  Incredible as that sounds, the
wind took it away like a leaf.  I watched with fascination as the sign
scaled the fence shown along side this building (easier to see on the
large size) The fabric banners below are tattered.

Our otherwise lovely street took a beating.

Most of the trees on this street are permanently malformed by high winds.

Someone had been busy removing all the broken branches and dragging them to
this empty lot.  Many of the branches have been sawn off.

It takes a strong wind to do this to a tree.

Same pile of debris from the reverse angle.  This used to be a short cut to get to the Thai karaoke place across the street.

This tree stands in mute testimony to the power of Krosa.  It could have been a lot worse....

This article is an edited version of an article I posted to my blog earlier.