I'm thinking that people are over-reacting and I hope that I am right. While the stories go around that this is going to be the biggest storm since 2006, I feel like global media and government kind of does a bunch of fearmongering and the people at least appear to eat it up.
We went down to the beach today to check the scene and at least at that point, no authorities were preventing people from doing so.
The waves were slightly larger than usual but certainly nothing to get excited about. There were people out and about and even fishermen that were doing what they always do. None of the swimming areas were set up and no one was getting into the water except for the fishermen pulling in their nets.
From where I was walking it seemed like people were more interested in staying dry than staying away from the water. There are loads of other precautions that have been taking place such as the placement of sandbags on beach facing buildings, tape on windows that I don't think actually accomplishes anything, and police were going around to secure other structures such as ATM's.
This one kind of made me laugh because I have a hard time believing that a couple of sticks of bamboo are going to make that much of a difference. What do i know though? I am just a silly foreigner that has only lived here a couple of years.
I just know that the last time we went through this it wasn't nearly as bad as people predicted and perhaps the over-preparation is a good thing. I guess that would be better than if everyone just did nothing and then there was carnage in the streets afterwards.
T-minus 10 hours or so before the big part of the storm hits us.