You may have heard that a typhoon hit our island today. Just want to let you know how we and the Manubu’ here in our village fared. Still raining some as we write this, although the wind has stopped.
This was the strongest typhoon we have experienced. Our 60ft high cell phone antenna pole broke over and crashed down onto the roof right over our solar panels. Haven’t been able to investigate yet but assume that one or more stainless steel cable guy wires broke.
It didn’t damage any solar panels, but the wind made a mess of them. Part of the roof they were fastened to blew off. One set of two panels ended up hanging off the roof by it’s wires. Another set of 5 panels tore lose and ended up upside down on another set of panels. Another set of 2 panels have been found a couple of hundred feet away down over a bank by the river. A set of 5 panels is still missing.
When the roof section blew off the rain poured into the house. We had ankle water in our second floor bedroom which leaked down to the lower floor. Our office where we work had water leaking into it and blowing in horizontally through the jalousie windows almost all the way across the room.
A sheet of tin roofing blew off over our kitchen next to a skylight. The skylight cover – sheet metal and green house fiberglass – blew off even though tied on with wire. Rain poured into our kitchen.
A bunch of believers here in our village came in the rain and did a temporary fix of the worst roof damage using some used sheet metal roofing we had. Only the kitchen is still leaking. We’re really grateful for their thinking of us, especially as most of them lost all or part of their roofs.
One house that had been framed up but not yet roofed or sided blew apart. Another believer has been building a new house and almost finished. He bought sheet metal roofing (which is very expensive for them to buy). The roof had only been on for two days before the typhoon hit, and much of the roofing was bent up and torn.
The sheet metal roof of the believer’s meeting house blew off.
We don’t know yet how believers in other Manubu’ villages have fared.
A number of kids and later some adults sought refuge in our house. We gave the village a half sack of rice we had because no-one had had breakfast. Wish we had had more to give.
The landscape has changed. Any tall trees left standing are nearly stripped of leaves and limbs.
So, we have to do some more temporary repairs to our roof before we can set up our computers again. And sort out and try to dry wet papers :-(. And we’ll have to rely on our generator for electricity until weather allows us to re-frame and re-roof the roof and attach our new solar panels. (That may not happen for a few weeks or months yet because we are just about to start into rainy season). We’re thankful that it was the old panels rather than the new ones we haven’t yet installed that have been messed up.
We’ve had contact with some of our fellow NTMers here on our island, and are thankful that no-one reports injury or loss of life in their areas. We’re also thankful that our new satellite internet system doesn’t seem to have been damaged in the storm – that is why we are able to send this message to you :-).
Anyone want to come and fix our roof and do some other repairs and modifications to our house?
David Abbott says
Great to hear you and the people immediately surrounding you are OK. From the Joint Typhoon Warning Center graph, the eye of the storm passed very near your location.