Once again, our prayers were answered and we are incredibly grateful! The typhoon continued heading north through Friday night and Saturday morning. When we woke up Saturday morning, we were still on a Tropical Storm watch, but by 10 am that watch was cancelled. At that point, we knew we were in the clear! It was a little windy on Saturday, but I don't even think we even got rain to be honest.
My heart is so full of gratitude! And my testimony strengthened! This is obviously our first typhoon season, and we have had many close calls. We have had quite a few storms coming straight towards Guam, that have changed course. I'm sure this is how it will be every season we are here. And the only thing we can do is prepare ourselves and let mother nature take its course. How grateful am I for the Gospel! For the wonderful counsel of our Leaders on preparation. And the scriptures too. Modern day revelation is such a huge blessing and I have been reminded this past week how lucky we are to have it in our lives! I couldn't help but think of many versus on being prepared this past week....here is one that stuck out to me this evening:
"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing..." Doctrine and Covenants 88:119
Showing posts with label Storm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storm. Show all posts
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Typhoon Melor
It's 930 pm Friday night. By tomorrow morning, this is what the entire island should look like. All the windows covered with storm shutters or wooden boards, so the wind/flying debris won't break them. It's kind of an eerie feeling driving around town and seeing everything boarded up.Typhoon Melor is expected to intensify over night and become a Super Typhoon, which means winds will be exceeding 150 mph. Melor is expected to hit Saipan, which is a smaller island just north of Guam. We are not on a typhoon watch, but on a tropical storm watch because we are far enough south of the eye of the storm, so we should expect winds to not exceed 73 mph.
We've been told to prepare for heavy rain and damaging winds starting tomorrow morning and continuing on into the evening. Hopefully the typhoon will continue heading west northwest and not southwest towards us!
We feel very lucky to be out of the eye of this storm. However, we aren't in the clear quite yet. We continue to ask for your prayers for all of us here in the Marianas Islands. Many smaller islands will be hit much harder than us. Thank you for all your prayers, care and concern over the past week. As long as we have power and internet connection we will continue to update our blog. It seems like every time we have gone to bed the past few days, we have woken up to news that this typhoon has intensified. I am nervous to see what we will wake up to tomorrow morning. We'll let you know...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Pop Tarts: A Disaster Necessity
So I sent Matt to the store again yesterday for some last minute disaster necessities. Guess what he comes home with........a Costco size box of Pop Tarts, NO JOKE!!! In his defense, they are a shelf stable food, right? Wait can you even consider Pop Tarts a food?!?!
Storm Watch Update
Wow, this morning has been quite the rollercoaster ride. I woke up this morning to the news that Guam has been put on a Tsunami Watch. I seriously had to laugh at this point. Really, a tsunami too, is this a joke or what??? American Somoa was hit with a huge 8.0 earthquake which triggered a massive tsunami. Many islands here in the Pacific were put on Tsunami Watch, but luckily the Tsunami watch has now been lifted for Guam!!! Yay, one less thing to worry about!!!
Now on to Tropical Storm 18W. It is still considered a tropical storm with winds expected to hit at 40 mph. The storm will be hitting the southern part of the island coming in from the east. We are located in the middle of the island on the east coast, just so you know.....not that this island is by any means big or anything :) Anyways, it is expected to hit us around 4 pm local time (it is 1030 am right now) but the military is going on today with "business as usual". I'm am definitely not worried about 18W. We have been through a tropical depression back in Dec, and 40 mph winds aren't too bad. We might lose power, but we have a generator and I am almost positive the power will be restored before our building's generator is out of juice.
Now on to more serious news! We have another HUGE storm coming! The next tropical storm 20W, named MELOR, will be approaching over the weekend with typhoon strength winds of up to 100 MPH. Holy crap, this is the one to be scared about!!! Although the current forecast is for a Saipan impact on Sunday morning (Saipan is located north of Guam), computer models are not in agreement on the track and the forecast may change over the next 48 hours.
As I learned from 18W, conditions are constantly changing. In fact, I could have updated this blog 5 times yesterday, but decided to hold off until this morning because I knew the conditions would be changing yet once again. We will expecting to hear more about 20W on Friday morning local time. That will be Thursday afternoon for you all who are stateside. We will be praying that this storm slows down just like 18W did!
I do have to say though, that I think I have been handling all this stress/anxiety over these storms and tsunami warnings pretty dang well. So I am pretty darn happy with myself. I tend to get anxiety attacks pretty easily, but I have been really trying to stay calm and not freak out too much through all of this. Especially since the conditions are constantly changing, so what's the point? Am I nervous about 20W, heck yes!!! But I need to stay calm for me and the baby and for Rian too. So that is what I am doing for the time being. :)
Now on to Tropical Storm 18W. It is still considered a tropical storm with winds expected to hit at 40 mph. The storm will be hitting the southern part of the island coming in from the east. We are located in the middle of the island on the east coast, just so you know.....not that this island is by any means big or anything :) Anyways, it is expected to hit us around 4 pm local time (it is 1030 am right now) but the military is going on today with "business as usual". I'm am definitely not worried about 18W. We have been through a tropical depression back in Dec, and 40 mph winds aren't too bad. We might lose power, but we have a generator and I am almost positive the power will be restored before our building's generator is out of juice.
Now on to more serious news! We have another HUGE storm coming! The next tropical storm 20W, named MELOR, will be approaching over the weekend with typhoon strength winds of up to 100 MPH. Holy crap, this is the one to be scared about!!! Although the current forecast is for a Saipan impact on Sunday morning (Saipan is located north of Guam), computer models are not in agreement on the track and the forecast may change over the next 48 hours.
As I learned from 18W, conditions are constantly changing. In fact, I could have updated this blog 5 times yesterday, but decided to hold off until this morning because I knew the conditions would be changing yet once again. We will expecting to hear more about 20W on Friday morning local time. That will be Thursday afternoon for you all who are stateside. We will be praying that this storm slows down just like 18W did!
I do have to say though, that I think I have been handling all this stress/anxiety over these storms and tsunami warnings pretty dang well. So I am pretty darn happy with myself. I tend to get anxiety attacks pretty easily, but I have been really trying to stay calm and not freak out too much through all of this. Especially since the conditions are constantly changing, so what's the point? Am I nervous about 20W, heck yes!!! But I need to stay calm for me and the baby and for Rian too. So that is what I am doing for the time being. :)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
It's Coming....
I am scared. There is a big storm heading towards Guam. I've never been through anything like this before. We are just waiting for it to hit us and just sitting here waiting is not a fun thing.
Tropical Depression: winds less than 38 mph
Tropical Storm: winds between 39-73 mph
Typhoon: winds over 74 mph
Super Typhoon: winds over 150 mph
Over here in the pacific, we get typhoons. They are just like hurricanes. Yesterday we were informed that Tropical Depression 18W has formed and was gaining speed. It was heading straight towards Guam and would most likely become a Tropical Storm by the time it directly hit us Tuesday evening. Luckily, it slowed down and moved south yesterday afternoon and now will actually hit just south of Guam. This is great news!
As of this morning (it is 9am Tuesday right now) 18W is 625 miles east, southeast of Guam. Damaging winds will most likely hit us starting around 5am Thurs. Since it will hit south of us, we will most likely just encounter a Tropical Depression on Thursday, however a Topical Storm watch is still in effect for Guam at this time. Hopefully it won't be too damaging. However, the speed of the storm can change at any time, so we still need to prepare for the worst.
One problem with these storms is that it affects the power and water. Losing power is a very common thing here and we actually lose it during almost every thunderstorm. However, losing power means losing internet access and phone (we have digital phone), which then means, we lose all communication to all of you who are stateside. I do not like that! I have been stocking up on water and non-perishable food ever since we got back to the island in May. But I keep asking myself, do we have enough?? I can't seem to answer that question. And this is one of the reasons why....
...There is another storm following behind Tropical Depression 18W and possibly another storm (yes, that's #3) behind that one. Since this first storm won't be too damaging (hopefully), I am pretty sure we can survive that; even if we were out of power for a few days or so. But what happens when this next storm hits. The next one has yet to be named, but has been rumored to be much more intense than 18W. Will we have enough to get us through another major hit? Because you know we won't have a chance to restock after each storm, especially since we live on a island and there are limited supply of everything to begin with. And sometimes the power and/or water can be out for weeks. The next storm is projected to hit us Sat morning.
I just feel have that motherly instinct to protect my family, and I am worried that I won't be prepared enough to do that. We have food, water, gas in our vehicles, flashlights, batteries, hurricane lamps, candles, clean clothes, clean towels, clean dishes, toilet paper, paper products (plates and stuff), clean bath tubs to fill with water before the storm hits, charged electronics, etc. I've gone over the list several times and I think we are prepared in that aspect. But this is still a scary thing.
Matt just sent me this link: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/guam/guamloops/guamir.html If you want to see satellite images of the storms. I'm going to try to keep you all updated with this information as it comes to us. Please remember all of us here on Guam in your prayers :)
Tropical Depression: winds less than 38 mph
Tropical Storm: winds between 39-73 mph
Typhoon: winds over 74 mph
Super Typhoon: winds over 150 mph
Over here in the pacific, we get typhoons. They are just like hurricanes. Yesterday we were informed that Tropical Depression 18W has formed and was gaining speed. It was heading straight towards Guam and would most likely become a Tropical Storm by the time it directly hit us Tuesday evening. Luckily, it slowed down and moved south yesterday afternoon and now will actually hit just south of Guam. This is great news!
As of this morning (it is 9am Tuesday right now) 18W is 625 miles east, southeast of Guam. Damaging winds will most likely hit us starting around 5am Thurs. Since it will hit south of us, we will most likely just encounter a Tropical Depression on Thursday, however a Topical Storm watch is still in effect for Guam at this time. Hopefully it won't be too damaging. However, the speed of the storm can change at any time, so we still need to prepare for the worst.
One problem with these storms is that it affects the power and water. Losing power is a very common thing here and we actually lose it during almost every thunderstorm. However, losing power means losing internet access and phone (we have digital phone), which then means, we lose all communication to all of you who are stateside. I do not like that! I have been stocking up on water and non-perishable food ever since we got back to the island in May. But I keep asking myself, do we have enough?? I can't seem to answer that question. And this is one of the reasons why....
...There is another storm following behind Tropical Depression 18W and possibly another storm (yes, that's #3) behind that one. Since this first storm won't be too damaging (hopefully), I am pretty sure we can survive that; even if we were out of power for a few days or so. But what happens when this next storm hits. The next one has yet to be named, but has been rumored to be much more intense than 18W. Will we have enough to get us through another major hit? Because you know we won't have a chance to restock after each storm, especially since we live on a island and there are limited supply of everything to begin with. And sometimes the power and/or water can be out for weeks. The next storm is projected to hit us Sat morning.
I just feel have that motherly instinct to protect my family, and I am worried that I won't be prepared enough to do that. We have food, water, gas in our vehicles, flashlights, batteries, hurricane lamps, candles, clean clothes, clean towels, clean dishes, toilet paper, paper products (plates and stuff), clean bath tubs to fill with water before the storm hits, charged electronics, etc. I've gone over the list several times and I think we are prepared in that aspect. But this is still a scary thing.
Matt just sent me this link: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/guam/guamloops/guamir.html If you want to see satellite images of the storms. I'm going to try to keep you all updated with this information as it comes to us. Please remember all of us here on Guam in your prayers :)
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