T-9: 海甸岛 → 国兴大道

September 7, 2024

I think my favorite thing about the camo heavy equipment is the big ass signs on all the vehicles saying "Must give precedence to civilian vehicles"

Not that packing is ever fun, but it's substantially less fun when you haven't showered, don't have a breeze, fan, or a/c, and the only real light you have is what's coming in through the windows.

My grousing was put in perspective as nothing more than a minor nuisance once I got far enough into the city that I had reliable internet. Lots of people that I know experienced some degree of flooding, and four people had one or more windows in their apartment blow out (with one of those incidents resulting in a concussion, a broken collarbone, three cracked ribs, and a broken hip¹).

I'm pretty sure I'm extremely over packed and, even after the Gansu junket t-shirts and shorts get mailed home that I'll still have more mailing home to do, but I'm well pleased with my ability to get all that and two panniers, my fork bags, my handlebar bag, and most of the contents of the aforementioned bags into two suitcases.

Okay, two suitcases, a backpack, and a laptop bag

After about two kilometers of walking, a guy in a car asked me where I was going, and since he mostly wasn't going anywhere at all other than to look at the damage, he offered me a ride.

I suppose I spent about an hour in the car with Mr. Tang. I wasn't² running my GPS tracker at the time and I didn't make a point of time stamping but I've also got some photos from shortly before I got in his car and some video³ of shortly after I got out of his car.

Looking at the chaos, it's obvious that—notwithstanding the very true memes about locals not noticing that a typhoon is going on⁴—the memory of 2014's super typhoons has stuck. There's still, as to be expected, a fuckton of damage but preparations from cutting tree branches, blocking street-level picture windows, and sand bags to staging the People's Liberation Army and Blue Sky Rescue in advance and evacuating 410,000 people from low-lying areas⁵ mean that it's barely even a fraction as bad as it seems like it ought to be⁶.

What isn't surprising is that some windmills fell over

What's surprising is how many of them didn't fall over

During my hour in his car, although there was some backtracking for blocked roads, we managed to go as much as 6 or 7 kilometers. But, we (and by "we" I mean "he") managed to cleverly head for the area near the offices of the provincial government, so I was able to get a room with both running water and a power supply good enough that their elevators and central air conditioning were working.

Shower, then a sharebike home to get booze and a birthday present for my friend Sarah, and a much longer than usual ride out to her place⁷ where those of us who could make it held a lovely potluck.

I hadn't previously realized that most of the city's power runs underground. This is a communications cable.

It's hard to tell but I think it's the light pole that knocked it out, not the tree

¹ At the time it fell on her, she was mopping up water that had come in through the not yet broken picture window

² I use GPS Logger by Mendhak which is mostly the best gps tracker available for Android but which sometimes just stops working for no discernable reason and doesn't tell you that it's turned off.

³ My new series: Checking in at a Hotel in China as a Foreigner after the May and July Announcements from the Central Government, which—if my assistant gets Instagram working—may soon be available on western social media as well

With a Very Safe Red Plastic Bag warning people not to hit it, it is currently propped up on a makeshift stand made out of the median strip barrier

⁴ And recent transplants causing a big enough run on the grocery stores that Market Supervision and Control has to step in and make public announcements about the stability of the food supply

⁵ All the evacuees are actually from rural areas in coastal Wenchang, Qionghai, and Wanning, not Haikou.

⁶ I realize that the 2014 typhoon was accompanied by a super high tide and storm surge, but I really want to know how they managed to improve the drainage on a river delta island maybe two meters above sea level to the extent that there is no standing water. Some of these streets used to flood after every thunderstorm, for crying out loud!

⁷ The ride back to my hotel, in the dark, with most streetlights still out was, quite possibly, the most stressful hour I've ever spent on a bicycle

Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 32 km (20 miles)

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