Vol 26 Hurricane Gonu

Not sure if news of the weather here has reached any of you but we just had a hurricane/cyclone here. Hurricane Gono. It rains so infrequently here they are unprepared when it does. The rain hits the surrounding mountains, rushes down in wadis and floods the city. This is the worst storm here since they started keeping records in 1945. It rained hard for about 24 hours and when the storm finally hit shore we had wind to contend with as well. The storm had originally been labeled a class 5 hurricane by the weather services but by the time it arrived it had been downgraded to a class 2. Thank God. There is so much damage here with just a class 2 storm I would hate to see what the city would have looked like with class 5. I’ve seen footage on TV of cities after storms and floods but seeing it first hand is something different. Last I heard there were 32 deaths and another 30 missing so I guess we got off pretty light compared to New Orleans. Still, it’s heartbreaking.

I was holed up in my apartment for all of it, after we did what we could to protect the more expensive equipment at the office. We moved everything out of the treatment rooms, into the hallways in case the plate glass windows blew. They didn’t, thankfully. There was some leakage around some windows and a bit from the roof but that’s it. My building was fine too.

I took this photo from my bedroom window shortly after the rain started 2 days ago. It stopped raining sometime last night. This afternoon Firas came and picked me up and we ventured out in the company SUV to get a look at the damage. Most of the flooding had cleared but everywhere we went there were signs of it. Any road near a wadi was affected. They simply couldn’t contain all the water so they overflowed and then the water had to find new paths. Most of the streets are covered in a thick layer of slippery mud.

This tree near the office is one of many uprooted by the force of the water.

This is the beach by Second Cup, where I spend much time writing these blog posts. The water was fierce.

Everywhere we turned the roads were ripped up. All of the asphalt was ripped away in this parking lot. That vehicle is in a sink hole. We saw parking lots where all of the cars had been picked up and squashed into a corner. Big chunks of highway were washed away and a few times the giant cement barricades that separate the east and west bound lanes were swept away. Sorry, no photo of those things; my camera batteries died at one point and we had to find an open gas station to replace them.

This is one of the main round-a-bouts. It had on and off ramps to the highway above that are gone. It is completely destroyed. These photos were taken at least 12 hours after it had stopped raining and the water was still flowing.

Here’s a close up of that car. Completely crushed. There were overturned cars everywhere.

I’m sorry to say this is the street where Eman lives. This is a couple of doors down from them. I didn’t want to take photos of their place because it seemed insensitive. Eman and her husband, Yasser, were not there, they went to Eman’s mother’s house to weather the storm. But Yasser’s Mother was there and she told us that everything on the first floor was destroyed by water and mud. Their beautiful garden was destroyed too. She stood beside our car holding my hand as she told us about the damage. Their neighborhood was one of the hardest hit. There was 6 feet of water in many people’s homes.

This afternoon, as we drove through Eman’s neighborhood, we saw everyone bringing out their possession to throw away. Mud soaked sofas, carpets, appliances.

And we saw of lot of this. People sitting staring at the damage. These women are resting their feet on what used to be their fence.

In all of these photos there used to be sidewalks and roads where all that mud and gravel is.

This is the main road in Eman’s neighborhood. Some people were crazy enough to drive through the deep, swift current. Happily, Firas decided against it.

Occasionally as we were driving the road would just be gone.

Neither Firas nor I had noticed what had happened a little further along as I was taking this picture. We were standing on the road right in front of that fabulous beachside Starbucks (Blog #14) as I took this picture. Big hunks of beach and road were falling into the sea as we watched.

And this is just a few feet further along. The whole road had been washed away. This is one of the main connecting roads here. Many of the palm trees on the beach are gone too.

It is the weekend here and it will be interesting to see how the city reacts to this. I expect they will declare it a disaster at some point, perhaps they already have. I don’t have a TV or even a radio in my apartment so I don’t really know what is going on out there. One huge problem is water. The whole city is without water and some, including Firas, have been without electricity. Something is wrong at the water plant where they convert ocean water to city water. My landlord came yesterday to collect for the internet service that I didn’t even know I had. Apparenty there is a LAN network in the building. When I moved in I had enquired about internet. I guess he switched it on to my apartment without telling me. One of my Indian neighbors lent me a cable and tried to get it working for me but was unable to. So I’m cooped up here with nothing to do but read. Can’t flush my toilet or take a shower. Yesterday I read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince from start to finish while it rained and rained outside. I haven’t bought a fridge or stove yet so I’m living on microwavable food and bottled water. I don’t even have a chair so I’m just hanging out on my bed. My back hurts and my butt hurts. Firas is going to pick me up again tomorrow afternoon to check out the damage some more and possible buy a fridge. There is no way my car can go to the places we went today. But the road to the office from my place is undamaged so I’ll be able to get to work when we reopen. It’s weird to be cooped up here, I feel like I should be out there helping people but there is an army of Indian workers taking care of it all.

Love to you all back home.