Taiwan Typhoon: By Rise’ Carter
I recently returned from Taiwan. I landed the day before the “Morakot” typhoon started and left the day after it ended.
It was all the talk and I had no idea what to expect. Was it a monsoon, hurricane, tsunami, tornado, earthquake, El Niño, or mudslides? I wasn’t sure if I was suppose to head to the roof and wait for a rescue boat, stand in a doorway, hunker down in the bathtub with a mattress pulled over my head, find the nearest basement, or just grab a glass of wine and pray!
- Outside, total destruction is taking place.
As I worried, the hotel prepared with sand bags in the doorway, laid slip proof runners on the floors, and armed themselves with golf umbrellas, to cover the heads of the hotel guests as they went in and out. Only a few braved the weather to leave the hotel, and I was among them. I had an Educator training to do and nothing was going to stop me!
I was born in Kansas, and have seen tornados, so I was pretty sure I was not going to be whisked away to Oz. I have been in California, doing a nail demo, when they were hit with a “small” earthquake that moved me and the nail table halfway across the floor. I even remember the hurricane of 1962, (yeah, I know what you are thinking, but I was really young then!) that washed the some of the beachfront houses two blocks away in beach Haven, NJ.
The Taiwanese people didn’t flinch; they went about business as usual. Taipei was not affected like the towns and villages southeast of us, although the hotel was running out of many things because they could not get deliveries for several days. People on the streets (there were not that many) had their umbrellas turned inside out and upside down as the torrential downpours never let up. Couple that with high winds, hot, sticky, and thick air, I could barely breath…Not to mention, I didn’t have a good hair day until I came home!
The life of an international nail educator…never a dull moment
- It’s business as usual during this NSI training.
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