Cyclone Vania

Cyclone Vania recently hit Vanuatu and made for an interesting couple of days here. The preparation for hurricanes in the South Pacific is much different from what takes place in the USA. When the local radio stations begin to issue warnings and storm advisories, many local people refuse to believe that a cyclone would actually affect them. Church going villagers said that God would not possibly send a hurricane their direction because they are faithful Christians. Others saw clear skies and doubted the possibility that conditions could change quickly. Some villagers observed signs in the bush, such as the flight patterns of birds and the direction that banana shoots had grown and either negated or confirmed the storm warnings.

Often, locals do not begin to prepare until gale force winds actually arrive. This was the case in my village. When the winds picked up to around 40 mph, villagers began to climb on their houses to nail down copper sheeting or fasten coconut leaves over their palm leaf roofs.

We started receiving storm warnings for a tropical depression Monday that gradually strengthened to a Category 2 cyclone by Thursday. The copper roofing on my home had not been nailed down, instead pieces of timber were fastened on top- so on Monday I requested that villagers help me nail down the roofing. I was promised that a villager would show up Tuesday or Wednesday to help me, which never happened.

By Wednesday, most of the villagers believed that the storm had gone south and that we would not experience high winds. This was not the case. I did not sleep Wednesday night and early Thursday morning due to unsecured copper roofing slamming up and down on my roof top. At midnight, I climbed on my roof to take down two solar panels. At 3 AM, two pieces of roofing flew off in a major gust and I had to climb up once again to move a piece of copper from my front porch area to cover the gaping hole over my living room where the rain was streaming in. I spent a breathless five minutes on the roof working quickly, afraid that a tree top or rusty flying object would decapitate me.

Luckily one did not.

Anyhow, we made out pretty well on Efate in the long run. Just a few damaged homes and many fallen trees. Further south on Aneityum, the winds were much worse.