Typhoon Vicente

Katy experienced her first Typhoon 10, the first since 1998.  She slept through it all!  

I discovered that I do have a phobia after all...although I don't remember much about Cyclone Tracy other than family lore, and I don't have any issues thinking about or talking about Cyclone Tracy, it seems there must be some residual anxiety, as I was very uneasy throughout the night and hardly slept a wink worrying about the flower pots smashing the glass sliding doors!  Dada enjoyed watching the storm whip the trees about, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to look!

The winds battered the doors and howled while we researched cyclones on Google and wikipediaed Cyclone Tracy.  Typhoon Vicente's wind speeds were comparable, but I guess building quality has improved, because there was not much damage relatively speaking in Hong Kong afterwards.  I mean, Typhoon Vicente did uproot a few trees and send them toppling on a few houses, but Cyclone Tracy flattened 85% of Darwin and whipped cars up into trees...

The next day, Katy and Mama headed out to investigate and explore, after Dada had called up excitedly to let us know there were trees toppled down by the beach.

In front of our house, there were only branches down, and lots of wet leaves and puddles.

Down closer to the beach, one of Katy's beloved pine trees was toppled.  But of course, frustratingly, none of the trees blocking our views were damaged at all!!  They remain upright and tall and block our sea and city views!

One of the shade trees on the beach went over.

And the sand was washed all the way up over the wide beach promenade.

Several houses looked like they had near misses from the toppled Casuarina trees along the beach.  If any of those branches had gone through the windows, it would have been quite alarming for the sleeping occupants!