Hurricane Season

At the end of August 2024, Japan suffered from 台風10号, literally “typhoon #10.” English newspapers referred to it at “Typhoon Shanshan.” Just to clear the air, please note that the world has various ways of naming these “severe tropical storms.”

In the Atlantic Ocean, they are called “hurricanes.” For a long time, each hurricane was assigned a woman’s name. That has changed and the names alternate between male and female names, starting with a prepared list from A to Z. In the Indian Ocean, they are called “cyclones,” and of course in the north Pacific we call them “typhoons.”

In 1964 I was living in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on the Atlantic coast, when Hurricane Cleo struck. The “eye” of the hurricane passed very close to the house where we lived. Fortunately we had thick wooden shutters covering the windows. During the night, we heard a loud “bang” against one shutter, and the next day discovered what caused it: a heavy coconut that was blown from a nearby tree. Thank goodness for strong shutters!

After Cleo passed, I was recruited to help clean up an apartment on the 14th floor of an oceanfront condominium. Heavy winds from Cleo had blown water into an apartment—through the edges of aluminum storm shutters. The floor was covered with water. It was a rush job to get the carpet out of the apartment and mop up the floor—before the water went through the floor and into the apartment below.

Whatever name we use to describe these severe tropical storms, many people suffer and they need all the help we can offer.

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