{"id":371,"date":"2015-12-24T14:54:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T21:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yangdidi\/?p=371"},"modified":"2016-01-11T23:02:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T06:02:35","slug":"junior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/yangdidi\/2015\/12\/24\/junior\/","title":{"rendered":"Junior"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JR<\/a><\/p>\n

Junior is a community leader and organizer from the Ulithi Atoll. He was on\u00a0the island of Falalop during the storm.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first heard about the storm, I was at the priest\u2019s house, we were talking about renovation of the church or something, and the radio call came in. This was April \u2026 No. It was on a Friday, because somebody had mentioned on the radio to look out for this small dot brewing in the east, that seemed to follow the path of previous strong typhoons. This was way back in the Chuuk area, it started out very low latitude. It means that it\u2019s going to go North, moving West, somewhere in the path. That\u2019s where I was, on the beach, hearing that.<\/p>\n

I went to my house to look at the chart, and what really helped me to push for preparation, there was a typhoon from 1991 that my father had plotted on this same chart. This was a \u201991 storm that had started off the same area, he had plotted this thing all the way past Ulithi. I looked at that and I was like, \u201cOh wow,\u201d you know? If this followed that same path, it would run directly over us.<\/p>\n

That really helped. I used that to convince the community that we\u2019ve seen that before, we\u2019ll see it again. The elders got involved, and a couple of guys with radio access, and we started to monitor from that time on. This became the Saturday after, actually.<\/p>\n

First we had a meeting with the community. The first one was Sunday, by Saturday evening (Sat at 3:00), we had done the Friday, Saturday monitoring directly with Guam. We see that it\u2019s continuing to follow the same path, it continued to intensify. At that point, the decision was made to bring the community in. The first meeting was actually Sunday after mass, to prepare. This is at the point where we identified the shelters, just talking about it, how we\u2019re going to prepare and get the word out. The actual cutting of coconut trees happened on Monday.<\/p>\n

We cut down a total of 26 coconut trees. All the boys got together and we started from one end of the island. We cut down all the coconut trees that seemed to be on top of buildings with people in them. Some we didn\u2019t. We went house to house, all the way to the end of island, going to each family and asking if there\u2019s things we wanted moved. Particularly we cut down the trees that seemed to be in the way to hit houses, and then check on if there was loose tin or things that could be dangerous if they were flying. Two things were the main focus of that particular preparation, it was if there\u2019s tins that are loose you put them in a pile somewhere and then put heavy objects on top. We did that at almost all the houses, especially the ones with the elders. Basically just going around, while we were doing that, we were informing people to put away their pots, all of the water catchments should be fixed. It\u2019s starting to look funny at that point, wind-wise. There\u2019s no rain, so we had informed people that by the next day, it\u2019s starting to rain and not too windy, people should start to collect their water and then cover it eventually. We were aware of that by Monday.<\/p>\n

We had got together with the leaders and decided on what kind of warning we should give out. That Sunday, the peace corps office was calling for me to bring them to Falalop and bring them to the lodge. Eventually between 12 and 2, the decision was made to move all the peace corps out of Ulithi, so we just had to wait for one more from Federai and then send them out that Sunday. They were out of the way, and then we focused on the locals. At 1:00, we had the last plotting of the storm. And then the decision was made to shut down power by 6:00. Secure our plan, and shut down.<\/p>\n

We shut down the power way before the shelters were shut. We shut down the power, we secured the power plant and the equipment, and then everyone\u2019s out of the working places, the school and all of that. I think it was 1:00 in the afternoon that everyone was stopped and everyone went home to fix food or get ready for the storm. By 6:00, everyone was in the shelter. It\u2019s still daylight, the wind is starting to pick up a little bit but it was totally fine, normal.<\/p>\n

I was in my house on Falalop, one of the shelters, with 29 other people, and most\u00a0of the babies were sent to my shelter. I guess that there\u2019s some trust in there, to have the kids. The kids were all sent together to send them to one of the safest places, and a lot of them are related to me. Most importantly, we were the farthest in and there\u2019s some backup water in my area, so they figured that would be helpful, thinking that the storm was going to be that bad. There was some indication that we were going to be hit pretty bad.<\/p>\n

Then we had a head count at 6:00. What shelters had people, and making sure that all the main ones, all the VHF communication [walkie-talkies] was established to everyone. There\u2019s a few concrete houses, they\u2019re on our side, they\u2019re closer to me but they didn\u2019t have VHF communication.<\/p>\n

VHF communication is the radio that we used throughout the whole storm. We stayed in communication the whole time, all the way through the next morning actually.<\/p>\n

For me, by 8:30-ish, my porch went. The whole thing came off. I figured, we had plotted the storm and estimated that that closest point of approach would be about 10 to 11, if it follows the path and moves at the same speed that it was going. It actually slowed down, I thought, or maybe because we were in it, it just felt like forever. By 8:30, the first part of the house went off. That porch that we lost at my house, that\u2019s where I store all of the propane gas\u00a0and the gasoline. That was kind of the thing on my mind, that it would catch on fire. I wasn\u2019t too worried about the house collapsing or any of that (it\u2019s concrete). I figured we\u2019re so far up in the middle of the island, if that\u2019s gone, everything is gone. I think I was more worried about the propane and gasoline that had flown off, and we\u2019re starting to feel the hits from that side of the house.<\/p>\n

The next thing I thought about doing was, how are we going to get these babies out of here? At one point, I want to say 10 – 11ish, we had wrapped up the youngest baby, that was three months old, and put her inside the highest shelf inside my room, thinking that, if we go, she\u2019s the last to go.<\/p>\n

The only access out at this point because we had boarded up the house was going to be out through the bathroom in the back. We moved everyone back telling them because it was safer, but really we wanted to keep them away from the side with the gasoline. something had flown by and hit one of the big drums open so we could smell the gasoline inside at this point. We kept telling the girls that there was a leak, that my stove when it\u2019s windy, the propane gas, you can smell gas. No, that was completely made up just to keep calm in the shelter.<\/p>\n

I think for me, the toughest point was that. We were aware of the danger, we could barely breathe because the pressure was so low. First time I\u2019d experienced something like that. You could feel the pressure so low, it feels like you were diving at 80 feet. That was something that was different from other storms.<\/p>\n

The biggest thing was how to get these kids out of here if it blows. That was the biggest thing for me. You look outside and you see the lightening. Every time it lights up, you see a different landscape. Whether it\u2019s a tree, it\u2019s different house, or so much of whatever. Moving out into that big open line of mine, you could see that. that\u2019s an image that\u2019s probably going to be stuck in my mind forever.<\/p>\n

I took a video on my phone because I thought that was the end of all of us. I took a video and put my phone in a dry bag with my ID and my wallet. I thought,\u00a0“This is going to float and somebody\u2019s going to find it.” To give them an idea of what it was like during the storm. I wasn\u2019t thinking at all about, if we take this picture here, more people will see this. I wasn\u2019t thinking too much about how it was going to be seen, I just thought, let me give people an idea of what\u2019s going on here at this time. I was afraid that anything could happen and \u2026 I just took that part and with my passport, my ID, and my wallet, I rolled it up with air in it and carried it with me during the whole storm.<\/p>\n

Here’s the video that Junior took on his phone during the storm:<\/em><\/p>\n