My wife and I are just 60 hours shy of leaving Japan and moving to America. My apartment is empty and cleaned, utilities are arranged to be shut off Monday when I move out (inetrnet already is, typing this from an internet cafe), bags are packed, stuff has been sent home. We are ready and excited.
But there is a huge typhoon with its epicenter right over our city and we've been getting hammered all day today and yesterday, and the typhoon hasn't shown a bit of mercy--much worse than any other typhoons I've experienced here. My wife's family's house (she still lives there, we were just married in January and my apartment is single occupancy so it was just easier/cheaper to keep the same living arrangements until we left Japan) is literally not 50 meters from a river. The river basin is wide, about 700 feet, though the river is maybe 100-200 feet wide. The river itself isn't but maybe 8-10 feet deep.
My wife and I had plans to have a very nice dinner tonight, but she called me at 7 to tell me they actually had evacuated her neighborhood to an elementary school shelter because if the river rose 5 more meters, it would flood. She and her family are safe. At first I thought, given the width of the river, and the fact 5 meters is no small height, there was no way that the river would flood and to me it actually sounded overly cautious to be evacuating. At 8:30 I drove over there and had a look and just about **** my pants. The water by then was only 3-4 meters from cresting the riverbank, moving fast, and was the entire 700 feet wide. Problem is, the riverbank is actually a hill about 12-15 feet high from the perspective of the neighborhood side (and is probably around 35-45 feet high from the river's normal level to the top of the bank on the river side), meaning that if the river crests that bank, all the water is going to rush over it and downward and obliterate the neighborhood like a tsunami.
Problem is, between 7 and 8:30 tonight, the river had risen 1-2 meters of the 5 or so it had to crest that bank. It's now going on 11:30, and as I sit here in the internet cafe hearing it roar outside, I realize it has only rained harder and harder in the last three hours since I saw the river.
I have a sinking feeling that my wife and her family, by this point, have lost everything...and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't know for sure, but if I had to bet, I'd guess her neighborhood is underwater right now.
But there is a huge typhoon with its epicenter right over our city and we've been getting hammered all day today and yesterday, and the typhoon hasn't shown a bit of mercy--much worse than any other typhoons I've experienced here. My wife's family's house (she still lives there, we were just married in January and my apartment is single occupancy so it was just easier/cheaper to keep the same living arrangements until we left Japan) is literally not 50 meters from a river. The river basin is wide, about 700 feet, though the river is maybe 100-200 feet wide. The river itself isn't but maybe 8-10 feet deep.
My wife and I had plans to have a very nice dinner tonight, but she called me at 7 to tell me they actually had evacuated her neighborhood to an elementary school shelter because if the river rose 5 more meters, it would flood. She and her family are safe. At first I thought, given the width of the river, and the fact 5 meters is no small height, there was no way that the river would flood and to me it actually sounded overly cautious to be evacuating. At 8:30 I drove over there and had a look and just about **** my pants. The water by then was only 3-4 meters from cresting the riverbank, moving fast, and was the entire 700 feet wide. Problem is, the riverbank is actually a hill about 12-15 feet high from the perspective of the neighborhood side (and is probably around 35-45 feet high from the river's normal level to the top of the bank on the river side), meaning that if the river crests that bank, all the water is going to rush over it and downward and obliterate the neighborhood like a tsunami.
Problem is, between 7 and 8:30 tonight, the river had risen 1-2 meters of the 5 or so it had to crest that bank. It's now going on 11:30, and as I sit here in the internet cafe hearing it roar outside, I realize it has only rained harder and harder in the last three hours since I saw the river.
I have a sinking feeling that my wife and her family, by this point, have lost everything...and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't know for sure, but if I had to bet, I'd guess her neighborhood is underwater right now.
