Typhoon Neoguri Approaches

PREPARE FOR A DIRECT HIT FROM CATEGORY 5 SUPER TYPHOON

Super Typhoon Neoguri is probably going to hit Okinawa with brutal strength on Tuesday morning. Right now at midday on Sunday it’s a beautiful sunny day, enjoy the lovely weather, but you also need to prepare for the arrival of a meteorological Godzilla.

Before it gets windy and rainy. Tidy up the garden / balcony. Bring in your trash cans. Your neighbors won’t be impressed if they find your parasol embedded in their car windscreen.

Have bottled water for drinking, and fill the bath so that you have water to refill the toilet cistern if water is cut off.

Have plenty of food  that you can eat without using electricity or gas.

Have batteries and flashlights ready before you get a power outage. An LED lantern is also a good idea.

Have some towels ready as the strong winds can sometimes push rain under doors and around windows if they aren’t sealed perfectly.

Rent some DVDs / buy a new book / set up an indoor bicycle trainer.

If you’ve got dogs take them for a good walk before the typhoon hits. You may also need pee sheets if it’s too windy to take them outside.

When the typhoon hits don’t go outside. Fingers get crushed when doors slam shut, branches falling from trees become javelins. Downed power lines and wet roads….

Numerous typhoons hit Okinawa every summer. They are not something you should be overly worried about, but they are something you should be prepared for.

On a side note, typhoons are important in keeping Okinawa’s coral healthy. The rough seas stir up the ocean, breaking the thermoclines. This stops the surface waters from getting too warm in the summer months which can lead to bleaching of the corals.

Visitors to Okinawa, and those who haven’t experienced the power of typhoons before may be unaware just how strong these winds can be. Please watch the following video. There’s a lot of profanity so you might want to keep this on mute, but the images make the point more clearly than me just writing about the dangers of typhoons.