One of our friends messaged prior to typhoon Mawar: Awake! July 22, 2004 said that the water in a hurricane has "a weight equivalent to forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet, perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived." Stay safe! Please let us know if you need any help preparing.
Another friend replied: I guess I'll be watching some flying elephants
[ laughing out loud ]
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Curtis and Kathleen moved in just before the storm since their apartment was empty of furniture in preparation for their move to the Marshall Islands. We were happy to have them with us. They added a bit of levity to the whole affair.
Mawar's projected path
Radar
Things started building up around noon—high wind (100 mph) and heavy rain.
We had no idea how crazy it would get.
The wind was making this door bow in the middle despite the shutters.
The power went out at 1 pm.
Winds reach their maximum speed around 5 pm and continued into the next day.
Water poured in at five windows.
Lighting lit the sky. We were able to watch from this one uncovered window until it got so scary that we feared it would blow in. Then we kept our distance.
We would mop up one area and move to the next, just to start again. The following day our hands were raw from wringing water out of rags.
The wind made such a ruckus. It pounded on the shutters and squeezed through every gap. We mopped up water until about 12:30 am. As we were getting ready for bed, we noticed that the sliding glass door in our bedroom had jumped off the tracks. We called Curtis and Kathleen for help. Curtis held the door while Aaron secured it. We turned our headboard away from the slider, put earplugs in our ears and tried to sleep as the roaring noise continued. It was not our best night of sleep but the exhaustion was real.
T H E A F T E R M A T H
Our neighbor's tin roof from a block away
Not much left of the breadfruit trees (left)
There were several cars under this tree.
So much debris
Notice the boards screwed to the frame of the sliding glass door
Finding ways to dry towels and rugs from the night before
Our water was a dribble for a day. No power for 16 days. We barbecued meat from the freezer. Our freezer is small so we didn't lose much.
To be continued…
What a terrible experience. So glad you made it through ok. Thanks for sharing your photos.
ReplyDeleteYou guys all endured a lot with this storm. Thank you for all the photos and explaining all you went through.:(
ReplyDeleteWow! Lots of fun.🤪
ReplyDelete