Cyclone Phet

Now we can tell you: we spent the last couple of days barricaded in the house while under cyclone alert. A few days ago a tropical storm formed in the ocean and grew in intensity until it became a strong tropical cyclone (Phet) meant to veer towards Pakistan but that until the last minute stayed on course towards Oman. It didn’t reach Muscat but it did hit the Omani coast south of it bringing a lot of rain and some wind to the capital. Yesterday was the worst: we spent the whole day indoors (apart from a quick peek around the block to get some fresh air and check what was going on) and it rained for the whole day. In our area (or at least around our house) it wasn’t too bad and to be honest at times I felt I had seen some worse conditions than those but deeper into town it was a bit worse. For us it was an unusual weekend, gray and spent indoors, reminiscent of the ones we left behind in the UK. If it wasn’t for the fact that the water seeps through all the windows and under doors and that flash floods from overflowing wadis can be a real threat it would be even quite exciting but spending the day worrying whether your ground floor is going to become a mud river or trying to catch water falling through every imaginable gap between the wall and the windows is no fun. 

This time we were a bit luckier at least as the wind was coming from the sheltered side of the house and I have learnt from previous experience how to prepare the house for a big drip but a friend spent the whole day and half of the night changing towels at hourly intervals while new leaks would form as soon as she sorted the previous.

Today the cyclone has moved over the sea and towards Pakistan leaving a beautiful sky behind and a bright sun under which to asses the damage around the city. A whole shopping centre and some other business in the Qurum area were under the water yesterday (and under mud today) so the clean up has started. The sea was very swelled today producing some impressive waves, there is a lot of rubbish along the beaches churned up by the sea and most of the sand has disappeared. We went to the yacht club to check on our boat and on a dry dock it was all OK but the club has literally lost the beach to the sea. They tell me that it should form again in 2 or 3 months. 

So a little bit of damage here and there but nothing compared to Gonu I guess. The cyclone didn’t come all this way and the force that hit Muscat wasn’t as strong as the devastating cyclone back in 2007. I guess this time the city was also a little bit better prepared. Or at least that’s what I like to think. We are lucky: we are well and virtually unaffected, if we don’t count the extra day off granted by the government today; a tradition that is religiously applied on the occasional rainy day. 

You should ask the UK government to do the same when it’s sunny ;-)