Tuesday, September 02, 2003  

It's been a rather insane day, and the typhoon was at the centre of everything. I did say yesterday that it was headed for a direct hit on Hong Kong, and for once the forecasters were dead-on correct. And they had more ominous news too, talking up the sheer strength of the storm and the damage it caused in Taiwan on the way here. Ooh. Ahh.

By the time I left the house at noon, Typhoon Signal #3 ("Strong Winds Signal") was up, with most people expecting it to be raised further. I had a training session with the Bloomberg machines at their office at 12:45, so I figured I should try and be there early to beat the traffic. Squally showers and blustery winds were the order of the day, but nothing too serious. I go upstairs to Bloomberg's office only to find out that I was given entirely the wrong day -- I had to come on THURSDAY, not Tuesday (a quick call home to double-check the email I received confirmed that it wasn't me screwing up -- this time, they screwed up!). By the time all this is conveyed to me, my car has already sped halfway home, and I'm marooned alone in Central for over two and a half hours with nothing to do.

Lunch seemed like a good idea right about then, but by this time word had snuck out that the Hong Kong Observatory had made a "Pre-Announcement" that they'd raise the signal to #8 in two hours. Basically, since ACTUALLY raising the signal to #8 means that a whole host of laws and actions suddenly take effect -- workers are sent home instantly, ferries are stopped, etc -- if the Observatory knows for certain that they will be forced to raise the signal due to severe winds within the next few hours, they'll issue the "Pre-Announcement". Or as it should really be known, the "Get the hell home" announcement. This time though the timing was awful, since most people were on their lunch break, ensuring maximum confusion as nobody quite knew whether they had to come back to work after lunch. And so to cut through the confusion, people turned to their mobile phones. Given that Central arguably has more mobile phones per square foot than any other location on the planet, this only caused more confusion as the mobile networks were so swamped that nobody could get through.

And in the midst of the rain, the wind, confused employees either running back to the office or to lunch or to go home (or all three) and the complete failure of the mobile network... I was trying to contact my cousin Kavi and find out his lunch plans. Predictably, I had no luck. Since his office was next to Bloomberg's, I figured I'd go there and wait for a few minutes in the off-chance that he just might be ready to go out for lunch. And magically, he did turn up. He already ate lunch but had another 30 mins to kill, whereas I just wanted to eat, kill time and get out of the damned rain. So he offered to take me up to the HSBC canteen and buy me lunch. It's super-cheap up there -- HK$12 for a sandwich -- but you'll soon figure out why. HSBC's caterers are incredibly stingy. Where even low-end sandwich shops like Oliver's give you a generous helping of stuffing, HSBC's people literally give you the bare minimum. One slice of ham. Two pieces of lettuce. Two pieces of cucumber. Two pieces of tomato. Next!

With Kavi also stuck in the do-I-stay-or-do-I-go conundrum, I left him at work and browsed the nearby shops, waiting for his call... which duly came. His boss -- surprise! -- released him early. I needed to take advantage of my temporary Foreign Correspondents Club membership, so we headed there for a drink. Not a bad place, the FCC. Great location, but there's something unsettling about the colonial-style bar and the apparently colonial-era regulars that inhabit the place. There is something fitting about the crowd of them gathering to usher in the newly-raised Typhoon Signal #8 with a beer, though.

Riding the MTR to work wasn't the pain I had expected it to be, but then again, I was the only person actually heading TO the office. It was weird to see everything closing up and boarding up during the middle of the day though, with the glassy walkways connecting CNN's building with the others in the complex all being shut down and braced for the storm. Work did actually continue as normal, and the topic of conversation was the typhoon still barreling straight for us.

After the first show, the signal went up to #9, prompting more excited talk of a direct hit. And then the implications became clear: It's dinner time, and nobody's open. The clever folk who thought about this in advance and brought food from home were happy. The rest of us were screwed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I went hunting for food anyway. I figured that at worst I could grab some food from 7-11 (the emphasis here is on "worst"), but instead another saviour emerged... McDonalds. In the middle of the pouring rain and gale-force winds, McDonalds was still open.

The big surprise during the show was that the typhoon was suddenly downgraded. Basically, it fell apart. In side-swiping Taiwan on its way to Hong Kong it dumped a lot of its rainbands on the island, imbalanced the typhoon, and destroyed it. After all the talk, the predictions of a direct hit, murmurings that it was almost super-typhoon intensity... it blows out half an hour before it's due to pass over the city. Typical.

Posted at 9:41 PM

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