I suppose the old adage of "better safe than sorry" is a good one and I have been here when a real typhoon struck and caused serious damage and even loss of life but that doesn't mean that all the warnings that we get from the weather service should be taken oh so seriously.
As of yesterday we were put into basically a state of emergency and people were being quite frantic about a storm that simply never happened.
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Yesterday we got a bunch of rain but honestly, it was nothing out of the ordinary for a tropical country. The drainage systems were more than capable of handling it and other than some puddles and the fact that most of the condos here use unnecessary decorative stone that gets slippery on their entrance stairs, there was never really any danger.
When I walked along the beach yesterday the waves were a bit crazy and they weren't allowing any surfers into the water, let alone swimmers. I am not an expert surfer but the sea was unusable for that yesterday anyway and I don't think any surfers would have tried to get involved. The breaks were more like a washing machine than a good set a waves and it simply wouldn't have been possible to surf. I don't think it was really all that dangerous because the "waves" that we had were all probably under 1 meter anyway but there were no "sets" if that means anything to you.
People that freak out over anything were putting those silly X's on their windows with tape and honestly, this is something I have never understood. I don't think it actually has much of a benefit to do that anyway and then when they take the tape off the glue from the tape just stays on the window forever. Seriously! There are window in my own building that have X-marks on them from years ago still.
The city was out with their municipal trucks trimming all the trees and securing signs that would turn into sails if the winds got really strong and we were getting warnings sent through every imaginable avenue about how we need to "brace for impact." The grunt of the tropical depression that was meant to have turned typhoon was supposed to reach its apex at 7am local time today. It is now 8:30AM and I am currently standing on my balcony looking at a mostly dry street that doesn't even have many leaves on it, let alone a bunch of stuff that was whipped around by gale-force winds.
If you look closely you can see that the chickens in the pen across the way aren't even all that bothered and are just wandering around like they normally would be doing.
The people I know that work at physical schools all get let out of school early yesterday and they pre-empted the storm by closing the schools for the entire day today. I guess it is good to be prepared but today is one of the quietest days that I have experienced in quite some time. There is no storm. I haven't bothered to look online to see what happened to it, but the meteorologists that predicted this was going to be a terrifying storm were dead wrong, there is zero danger.
I suppose this is a good thing and it is nice that the area is prepared but I was one of the people that yesterday was responding to my friends that I didn't believe any of this was something to get all worked up about. This didn't stop them though and I think a lot of them were looking for attention as they posted warning after warning on social media and constantly reassured their friends who do not live here that they are still safe. ha!
I'm happy that nothing bad is going on but I do think that a lot of people tend to over-react when a potential situation arises. I guess that is better than it catching people off guard though.