Typhoon's Tail

This post is a bit lengthy, recalling the typhoon that hit the northern region on the eve of the long Hari Raya Aidil Adha weekend, 9th August 2019. Though the impact was not as bad as how Langkawi received, the 100km/h typhoon tail was still terrifying to a certain extent over in Penang.

At the time this post was written (15th Aug 2019 in Facebook), news websites reported some 300 trees were uprooted, softening the impact of the typhoon for the residence. Dubbed the costliest typhoon, the recorded total damage exceeded RM60 million.

Meteorology department circulated warning did not reach most of us in time. Thus, how me and my partner in crime ended up caught in the middle, along with thousands of other road users en route home for their Raya holidays over the weekend.



---------------------------

"I miss the rain."

"What?

"I miss the rain."

"You miss a rain, you miss the rain, or you miss Rain?"

"What?” Pointing up signifying the rain, "I miss the rain", while wondering silently, yea where did that Korean Rain go anyway.

Fast forward to the next day, we were having lunch, some crust stuffed with some cheese.

"I bought a movie ticket for next week using Boost app just now, minus the 50¢ shake-shake the movie ticket is just RM4.75.

Can you believe it? I don't think I've ever bought a movie ticket that cheap. Kalau tak pi pun takpa. And it's at TGV Gurney Paragon pulak tu." I rapped in excitement.

Details were a bit blurry from then on coz the next thing I remember was buying additional two movie tickets for that very night.

It was windy when we got into the car later in the night. Foreseeing a heavy rain coming, I silently wondered how I should have stayed in under the covers instead. But then I'd be falling asleep and be missing the rain. So, I was determined to enjoy the rain with a drive on that fateful Friday night for a movie in the city. Besides, it had been so long since anyway.

I turned on a TEDTalk topic I've been meaning to listen to and channel the sound through my car speakers. Heavy rain started to fall and we strained to listen to what Deepak Chopra was saying.

By the time we entered the BKE highway, we couldn't hear a word he was saying.

Strange. This was when my sceptical senses started coming alive.

"Why couldn't I hear a thing he was saying?"

I asked my PIC to change the Youtube to something karaoke and she immediately began fiddling with the phone.

I tried to pick up speed on the highway but something was holding back. My steering became erratic but the road wasn't slippery and furthermore, I had just changed to a new set of tyres last month.

The raindrops were huge and they fell hard on the windshield. I saw the rain patterns on the road in front of me flowing sideways in steep angle. Must be a particularly strong wind outside.

Well this was something I've done a number of times before, driving in heavy rain and windy condition, I thought to myself. This should be fine.

Meanwhile, other cars were beginning to move rather slow at around 60-70km/h. As if by force, we began to match their tempo as well. No one, not even the big pick-up trucks or a Lexus SUV went above 70.

"I can't fully control my car, actually." I softly confessed to my travelling partner.

"The wind is really strong..."

Perplexed. It was pushing my steering left and right. I felt my grips tightened and my feet started to press with a conscious force onto the car floor.

"Just look at the rainfalls on the road in front of us!"

Heavy rain of big droplets of water were spewing erratically under the car headlights.

At this point I slowed down to 50km/h.

Exiting BKE felt like a relief. We entered the North South Highway smoothly thinking the strong wind must have been due to the open lands on both sides of the BKE highway. There was a massive traffic jam on the opposite lanes, so typical of a Friday night traffic in Seberang Jaya northbound, made worse with the long Hari Raya weekend and school holiday break.

We were driving still well below the speed limit when I had to make a sudden swerve somewhere at the S-curve upon reaching the Penang Bridge toll plaza. To our surprise, there was a huge out of place tree branch in the middle of the speeding lane, with fresh green leaves still attached to it. When we finally looked ahead, the lanes were strewn with branches and leaves everywhere. Our eyes were wide at the sudden realization that this was a storm aftermath we’re walking ourselves into.

In the midst of processing what was in front of us and with some distractions on avoiding more pointy branches on the roads, we went through the SmartTag toll plaza onto the bridge eventually.

At this point I somehow learned, during an unfamiliar case such as this, my mind tends to take secondary position on its own accord. I was consciously calling for “what do I do, what do I do, what do I do” repeatedly to myself to no response. I was stuck gripping on the wheels and ‘mindlessly’ continuing what I was doing. Perhaps, this was when gut feelings started to take control.

Driving on the bridge became another level of experience that night. Though no tree branches this time, some parts of the divider was broken into debris onto the speeding lane which caused us to swerve occasionally. The worst was upon us when reaching the middle of the bridge; there was no walled-barrier in the middle.

The wind was the strongest I had ever handled behind wheels. The car was swaying even worse than it was on the BKE. At this juncture I began to imagine the possibility of flying cars slamming into us out of nowhere. I scanned the other cars around us, there were mainly sedans, SUVs, and a big lorry on the left. Thankfully, no small urban cars to steal my focus away. I tried to speed up the car a little bit to match the lorry on the left, with the hope of softening the instability. I managed, while straining to keep the car in straight line, to go side by side with the lorry but the impact was still the same.

Then, I began to acknowledge the presence of fear that had been knocking inside me since half an hour ago.

“You know, I have never driven in this condition before. In my whole life, and I love driving.” Was all that I could say trying to let go of the fear pressure while not letting ourselves being consumed by the the fear itself at the same time.

I can’t even recall exactly what my PIC’s response nor how she was coping sitting in the car beside me. Was she watching the driveway, was she still fiddling the Youtube channel, was she feeling the fear as well, I had no idea. I did not remember us doing much talking or was I not responding when she did as I was too busy staring on the road ahead and keeping myself sturdy, I really can’t recall. Somehow though, I am thankful for her presence beside me coz it gave me a slight determination to get out of this onto the other side of the bridge. Sometimes, the little thing is all that you need.

We managed to drive down the bridge, I felt my face began to warm up and my grips on the steering feel loosen up. I noticed a long massive traffic jam on the other side of the bridge, something I did not notice at all earlier. Escaping ourselves out of the open space of the sea was supposed to be a relief, but driving into the Lim Chong Eu expressway was another terrifying experience.

There were trees to the left and right of the expressway. The wind was still harsh. Thanks to the trees on the sides of the roads that picked up a lot of the impact, we were driving down the expressway more steadily now, unfortunately though, at the cost of these trees. This time, there were not only branches that we had to swerve, but trunks fallen onto the road. Though most of us were driving really slow, I still kept the car on either the speeding or the middle lane so as to avoid fallen trees and swerving cars. In the midst of the heavy wind, at the corner of my eyes, I saw a tree falling onto the roadside.

“(insert expletives here) Did you see that???!”
Dear God, we’re in the middle of a storm, I finally realized, or rather, accepted.
My PIC started to fiddle with the phone again, probably trying to keep herself calm.

“Don’t you think you maybe want to be looking outside at all these?”

“No. I don’t want to frighten myself.” Was her exact response.

The harsh wind slowed down almost instantaneously and so was the rain. I felt my mind returned and I sped up the car towards our destination. To our left was a police roadblock. Traffic was queueing behind a fallen trunk on the road. The lanes were littered with twigs, branches, and leaves. We maintained a cautious speed so as not to damage our car from the debris. There were more fallen trees along the sides of the roads as we were driving through George Town towards Kelawei Road.

Typically the worst hit area in the case of storms, there was a traffic jam along the Kelawei. There were sounds of emergency car units behind. We unwound our windows to a strong smell of trees in the air from the fallen trees and broken trunks on the roadside. Such calamity. I silently wonder if trees feel pain. An emergency 4x4 unit tried to push through the middle of the jam with its siren blazing but ended up turning around. We did not know exactly why it made a U-turn – was it due to a fallen tree blocking its way or a fallen tree had been moved to the side thus it proceeded to other locations maybe.

After about 25 minutes in, we made our way into the parking lot of Paragon Mall. We were 30 minutes late to the movie and with the hurried pace of 6 other patrons we concluded that they were too. We made our way into Hall 6, the movie was playing. The actor was singing a light cheerful musical tone. We tried to find our seats only to realize that we were the only people in the cinema hall. Though we were tempted to ask the operator to restart the movie but we sat down and continued watching anyway. I took out my phone checking for any updates from anyone, as it turned out, that was not just a storm, it was a typhoon.

“You know whadddtt…We were driving through a TYPHOON??!”

Why weren’t we informed of this typhoon? There were thousands on cars on the road just now. Where was the meteorology department?

After updating my family on our whereabouts, we curled up our knees on the larger couples seat and enjoyed the movie through a big relief. It was like watching the movie in our living room, we talked and discussed through the whole movie aloud. Like nothing happened. It was a good movie, one with a happy ending.

Later on, aside from the roadblock along Gurney Drive, we drove home without any incidents. More evidence from the impact of the typhoon (tail) along the roads in Penang Island, fallen trees, most were being held back by the electrical lines, and tree debris everywhere. Thankfully, there were no horrifying traffic accidents.

I've been called a drama queen by my acupuncturist (though i maintained my stance at not being mentally prepared before he punctured my knee), driving through the Typhoon Lekima's tail recently was an addition to my experience live-to-tell checklist. Would I have broken down crying like a girl if my partner in crime wasn’t there beside me on the bridge, I guess we’ll never know.

With all these being said and as clichè as this may sound, I couldn't help but recall the time both us ran in the Half Marathon PBIM just end of last year. It was pouring down in a heavy thunderstorm with lightnings to the left and right in the dark night, along Lim Chong Eu expressway and Penang bridge itself. As scary as this may sound, it was not as horrifying as the typhoon's tail experience. To say the least, I wasn't as fearful back then.

"What if we were on the bike just now?" My PIC asked on the way home after the typhoon.

"Oh God thankfully we weren't. I'm pretty sure we would have flown into a car or over the bridge or into a fallen tree. Pray we'll never be caught in a horrifying situation whenever we're on a bike." I said.

Thank you for reading.

Follow me on Instagram @azida.azizan