So what’s this about a Typhoon hitting Da Nang? We weren’t sure either on Friday night, Sep. 29
th, when we first heard. Typhoon Xangsane had already caused major damage in the Philippines and was intensifying in the South China Sea. The weather reports online were calling for a category 4 storm, with 140 mph winds. The Vietnamese at the school laughed a little and cancelled class for Saturday. “Just a storm,” they said.
Later that night we sat in our living room like kids nervous and excited about our first day of school. We talked about what a typhoon would be like. We joked to ease the tension. We monitored weather reports online. Sometime before midnight a rat dashed into the living room and gave us a wild time chasing it around with a plastic pail. We caught it, but it escaped again, and we think it went outside. Back to the typhoon. A serious-sounding email from a friend in Saigon encouraged us to fly there next morning at 9:00, which added a tone of panic to the whole situation. We went to bed late, with roaming thoughts, and woke up early in the middle of a difficult decision—head to the airport? Stick it out and take care of the house? Whose advice should we follow? For the first time our team encountered a serious split of opinions. I walked downstairs to the garage with a bowl of cereal. Outside everything looked normal; people went by on bikes. Guys sat across the street smoking and eating their breakfast. I pointed to the sky and tried to say “storm” in Vietnamese. “Yes, storm,” said the man in the garage. The receptionist added timidly, “plea—tonay, cloe your window.”
To summarize a few tense hours, we defaulted to staying and began to make ready. The wind and rain arrived as we took a taxi to the supermarket to stock up on food. Who knew how long we might be without power or water? A loudspeaker sounded in the street, warning people (we assumed) to take cover for the night. Added to the general tension was a serious fracturing of our team, and the day went on with awkward silences and unsaid feelings.
We prepared the house as best we knew how: wiring the windows shut, taking the plants in from the 4th floor balcony, covering the opening behind the sink with plastic. We had little concept of what a typhoon might be like. All I could call up in my head were images of sailboats tossed onto the beach and pieces of houses floating through the street. More e-mails came from ESI friends in Saigon warning us to leave town, that the storm could be bad. For the first time in my life a very real sense of dread began to hover over me, that something awesome and terrible was about to come, and that I could only wait.
I realized how often I pray with little personal investment in the outcome. Now I learned what it meant to pray and need an answer today.
Not that I felt my life was in real danger; I assumed that things would be fine (as they were). It was the great unknown that scared me. What might happen?
We picked a storage room next to our kitchen with the smallest window and set it up as the “bomb shelter” with food and water, flashlights, snacks, and books. It was probably a bit much, but it made us feel better. And we did retreat to that room for the last few hours of the storm, when the gusts were shaking the house and our roof tiles were smashing in the street. We never lit the candles, but we did open the Snickers bars and play a few games of cards, sitting uncomfortably in that stuffy little place.
When it really began late Saturday night we all slept downstairs near eachother, just snoozing, really, while we waited. Bryan got up every few hours and pointed his video camera out the window, dictating some CNNish description. (We wanted him to stand outside wearing his poncho and hold a microphone). At 5 am when the sky turned from gray to blue, the wind got stronger and tore some metal roofing off a house across the street. It hung up on a tree, and a few motorbikes went by.
The hours wore on with the relentless sound of rain and wind, wind that you could hear approaching like a jet and passing over the house. Our roof trembled, and the pressure changed like a window opening and closing on a moving car.
Bryan’s room was the first to flood, as wind drove water under his balcony door. It came out into the hallway, and every so often I tried to push it back toward the bathroom floor drain with a broom. The fourth floor balcony turned into a swirling pool, and water crept under the doors. We peeked up into the attic to monitor the roof, and it wasn’t in good shape. If the storm had gotten worse I think the roof would have been gone.
The winds died down by noon on Sunday--enough, anyway, that we celebrated the end of the storm with some cold rice and instant noodles.
People were out and about already cleaning up, sweeping rubble into piles, moving fallen signs. The rain had let up. We took our cameras and walked out around the block.
Not much left to the pool hall next door.
A giant construction crane had folded, smashing through a house.
All things considered, we were in a safe part of the city: away from the coast and surrounded by other tall concrete buildings. We heard later on the news that the storm downgraded to a category 1 when it made landfall. Mixed reports came about the wind speeds, but we think 100 mph or less. Yet we heard many Vietnamese say it was the worst storm in decades.
Some, but not many people around our neighborhood were hurt. More good news for us is the reconciliation that happened on our team. The storm showed each other our real personalities, and we did a poor job at first of loving and hearing each other. With some hard discussion, God helped us focus on our common purpose as a team, to forgive and move on. We are thankful that the storm brought out the issues before much more time went by.
Monday morning Simon took us to his neighborhood on the city fringes, where buildings had not fared so well. Almost every second house had lost its roof. Some were nothing more than crumbled masonry. We helped a few people clean up their downed roofing, and we drove on motorbikes around the city to get a better look at the damage.
Out by the bay:
By Monday afternoon the power was back on. We were surprised how quickly people got back to work and went on with life. Four of the office staff either lost their roof or their whole home, and yet classes resumed on Tuesday. The pool hall that collapsed is already totally rebuilt. It seemed as if nobody took a breath. The men downstairs, who are related to the owners of our house, quickly repaired our roof.
I received emails from many of you that you were praying and thinking. That was encouraging. Thank you!
Citadel (also see top). Quite an impressive place.
