Riding out the storm

I started building my ark a few days ago, after I saw part of Garapan flooded and Beach Road became a river. The rainy weather reminded me that typhoon season is once again upon us.

The fist hurricane I ever sparred with was in Florida, where I was stationed in the Navy. The Navy issued an order confining us to base, but I thought the heck I’m going to ride out the storm with these dweebs. So my buddy Leonard and I slipped off base with Pete the Puddle Pirate (he was in the Coast Guard), stocked up on beer, and went to Pete’s apartment to ride out the storm.

Parts of Florida are just as susceptible to topical cyclones as Saipan is. Yet, in Florida, they haven’t figured it that one out yet. They are surprised whenever the weatherman issues a warning that a big blow might huff into town.

I noticed two schools of thought in Florida. One (denial) was “nah, it ain’t never gonna’ hit us.” The other one was: panic. And, in either case, nobody was prepared at all.

The Floridian solution to exposed windows was: tape. Yes, tape. Nowhere in evidence were the bracket and plywood arrangements that we use here. The Floridians were out in force, trying to stick masking tape to wet windows in driving rain, as if the Masking Tape Gods would ward off evil spirits, wind, and flying debris.

Stores were simply jammed with folks buying batteries, flashlights, food, etc., as if they had never been told that hurricanes were a fact of life there. Anyone spending four dollars for a couple of carbon-zinc batteries at a 7-11 store in a last minute rush is a bit clueless.

After the storm finally did hit–and what a whallop–morons took to the streets for reasons known only to them, getting washed away in walls of raging water, and killing themselves in various and sundry stupid ways. What the heck, it’s good for Darwinism. The community was behaving so stupidly we couldn’t wait to get back on base just to get a respite from the madness.

By contrast, when I rode out my first typhoon here in Saipan, I was impressed at how well everyone took things in stride. No panic. No denial, either. The Emergency Management Office, radio stations, and Saipan Datacom kept an up to date storm watch, and when it looked like we might get smacked, people quietly and calmly went about their business putting up window protection, gassing up the cars, topping off the water supplies, and battening down the hatches, as it were.

After the storm knocked us around in As Lito, people just quietly went to work cleaning things up. What a contrast to the two-days-of-shock whine-fest I saw in Florida, where the entire community just sat around and bleated for “somebody to do something for us.” Heck, out here in Saipan, we’re on our own, and we know it.

If we handled economic storms the same deft way we handle typhoons, we’d be world class.

Back to the ark…you stock it with two of every kind, right? I’ve got a couple of lithe Japanese office ladies picked out who I saw doing the Garapan strut yesterday, and I’ve listed a couple of Filipina beauties on the manifest, as well. That’s a good start at least. Anchors aweigh!