Vol 28 Gonu Update 2

My water came back yesterday morning! That shower felt soooooo good. Many people are still without water so I am grateful to be able to bathe and flush and do some laundry. Our PRO, Ahmed, gave me some photos that he took and some he found on the internet. Thought I'd share some of them with you. The ones from the internet have annoying text across them- sorry.

A photo which shows the force of the water.

Huge waves, early in the storm.

This is all too common a site in the hardest hit neighborhoods. People are having to throw away everything. The streets are lined with furniture, appliances, dead cars and clothing.


There are stacks of cars everywhere. Imagine the force of the water to just scoop up all these cars and plot them down where ever.

Also everywhere are huge uprooted trees.

After the highway gave way there was a pretty waterfall for a day or so.

These gas trucks were in the wrong place when the highway gave way.

A firetruck and an army truck that were in the wrong place.......

I did say I wanted to see a photo of the McDonald's with the water to the roof......

The city is hard at work cleaning up the debris. So many people are without cars and homes. Everyone is being generous. Eman returned to work today. I'll tell her story when I have more details and the photos that she has taken.

I bought a fridge last week and now I am waiting for them to deliver it. It will be so nice to have food in my apartment. I'm going to buy a hot plate so I can cook while saving for a stove. Then I just need a trip to IKEA in Dubai for some cheap furniture, dishes and curtains.

I'll try to get up early tomorrow and get some more photos before going to work. Thanks for all of the support for my blog. I enjoy writing it; sharing my adventures. I think about all of you as I write it.

Vol 27 Gonu Update

Alrighty then, found an internet cafe open. Internet still not working in my apartment. Something about the IP address. Glad I gave them my money!

Also not working in my apartment, or anywhere in Muscat, is water. Day 5 no water. I did manage to flush my toilet last night, (thank God), by bringing home one of those water cooler jugs full of non-potable water. My apartment smells ALOT better now.

I have a water cooler in my kitchen and I had a full container when the hurricane hit. I still have about 1/2 left so I'd say I'm conserving well. I wash my hair with two coffee cups worth of water and use a wash cloth to bathe. I will sooooo enjoy that first shower when they restore the water. Not sure when that will be. Could be tomorrow, could be 10 days. There are conflicting reports.

My sister sent me a link to someone else's photos of the damage. You can check it out: by clicking here.

The photos there are of the Qurum area. One of the hardest hit. Commercial and residential and the highway goes right through it. Or it used to. Those photos that look like a waterfall are where the highway has fallen. By the time we went there to check it out they had barricaded it so I was not able to get photos.

Also in that area is that fantastic Toyota dealership, (Vol 8). The 3d and 4th pages of photos from the above link are of the cars in their storage yard. They were all picked up and swept away. They all got caught up and formed a dam. This was part of why the flooding in this area was so bad. The water rose to 2o feet, stayed there for about 1/2 hour and then the water rushed. Most of the water had gathered in the commercial area under the highway by the round-a-bout photos I showed you. There are several mini-malls and strip malls in this area. Also a two story McDonald's. The McDonald's had water to the roof. Wish someone had a photo of that. Groceries from the large grocery store in that area, (the only source of Boca Burgers and Ben & Jerry's), were strewn all over the place.

The thing to remember in all of these photos is that everywhere there is dirt and gravel there used to be roads, sidewalks and landscaping. So weird to see it all stripped away.

I found this photo online. It shows the Starbucks on the beach mid storm, (after the road had already fallen).

Everything on Eman's 1st floor was ruined. But she and her husband spent the storm at her Mom's house. When I wrote the last blog we had not heard from her yet, nor had her husbands Mom, so we were kinda worried. Didn't mention it in the blog because I didn't want to jinx it. Turns out her Mom's whole house was destroyed and they all had to be airlifted out of there. For the first couple of days helicopters were constantly overhead, picking up people from the roofs of their houses. Eman was one of those. They are all fine, including their 18 month old. Her Mom's neighbors a few houses away were all lost. Husband, wife and three children. The death toll is around 61 now.


Here's another photo from the internet. That's a car in the middle.

I wasn't sure how I was going to be of service at first- there are so many Indian expats here and they do all the "menial labor" kind of jobs. They are getting thing cleaned up quickly as best they can with no water. I was driving down the highway yesterday and they had closed 2 of the 3 lanes going my direction and about 150 Indian men were sweeping all the dust (used to be mud) off the road. The fallen trees and limbs are almost all picked up. The fire dept is all men here and I still have not made contact with any of the ambulance services here. They are all private, attached to the individual hospitals and clinics. Our office has a water tank on the roof so we have been open the last two days while other offices have not. We've been seeing what feels like every toothache in the city. So I am helping in the way that I can. Working long hours.

I just got a message on my cell phone, (in Arabic, had to have one of the cafe guys translate it), saying that when the water is restored it will not be potable. For cleaning only. Dare I hope? Will I be able to shower in the morning?

Thanks for all the warm wishes, I will give Eman a huge hug when I see her from me and all who love me.

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.