NTT finally came and fixed the broken phone line outside my home. The engineer said that he and about 1000 others had been sent down from mainland Japan to fix all the problems. They are clearly swamped by the scale of the job, and I wonder if it’s time for Okinawa to consider putting all those cables underground.

Typhoon Jelawat Debris

Typhoon Jelawat created far more havoc than expected. The main damage seemed to be to power cables, telephone lines, trees, and vehicles. A fisherman was killed at Zampa point, the typhoon had passed, but large waves still swept him off the rocks.

Typhoon Jelawat Debris

I was impressed by how fast the Okinawa clean up crews were able to remove debris from the roads. On Sunday afternoon there were trees strewn all over the 58 heading up through Onna Village, but by Monday morning things were clear.

Power outage in Ishikawa. (An iPhone shot in the dark!)

Typhoon season is coming to a end, but there still seem to be several typhoons loitering around. Hopefully we’ll get through the next few weeks without any more death and destruction.