Yesterday, Beth ended a meeting, and as everyone was starting to walk out, she said, “Oh, oh, wait! I almost forgot to tell you one more thing. A typhoon is coming, probably this weekend.” When pressed for more details, she said we should probably stay inside when it happens. If it happened on a weekday, school would be cancelled. She said there is often 80mph winds and water up to your knees from the rain with typhoons. “It’s like a hurricane. A natural disaster. It’s fine. I’ll see you at dinner.”

I know I have a tendency to worry more than most people, but “a natural disaster, it’s fine?!” I think, by definition, a natural disaster is not actually fine. Should I stock up on bottled water, at the least? A few teachers at dinner concluded, better safe than sorry. We’ve been advised not to drink tap water here, anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to have a few extra bottles on hand.

I understand that typhoons are very common here. Many trees are permanently braced with bamboo poles to protect them. As I was sitting outside my sweltering classroom feeling a pleasant breeze, it made me wonder if they built our school so that the prevailing winds would go past the windows and doors rather than through them, so as to mitigate typhoon damage. Or maybe they just wanted to ensure that summer classrooms would be as uncomfortable as possible.

Luckily, Patti couldn’t sleep, and she emailed her husband, who happens to be a weather fanatic. He did some cursory research:

I’ve done some checking and I see that the storm will never rise to Typhoon status again. It barely reached  that level a couple of days ago and then dropped and will continue to drop in strength as it moves across the South China Sea. It will pass far to the south of you, probably have a landfall in Vietnam. But, I see that it has dropped your temperature into the mid 80s, which I am sure you appreciate. But, I assume it is still quite humid.

I guess it really is fine. Thank goodness for the internet.

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