We’ve been through at lease a dozen typhoons, but none of them have been as damaging as Typhoon Soudelor. By the time it made landfall it had dropped down to a category 3 typhoon with sustained winds around 200kph. Being in the city meant that there wasn’t much chance for the winds to batter us as they would if we were in large open space or on the coast, but there was still a surprising amount of damage around our home. I would guess that 90% of all the trees suffered some type of damage and maybe 10% of them were completely uprooted.

Two relatively small trees in our side yard were blown down and there was some leaking in the bathroom, but there was no structural damage to our building. The electricity went out for a few brief moments, but fortunately we were some of the few that had power throughout the night and during the day.

As the eye of the storm blew past and the back-end of the typhoon swept across us, it had weakened considerably. This was a good time to head out and document some of the damage around our home. All of the photos were taken within a two block radius of our house.

In the end, the one thing that really stood out was the resilience of the Taiwanese people. The rains had barely stopped and the streets were filled with neighbors sweeping the streets and the parks, collecting debris and moving what they could of the downed trees with their bare hands. It was refreshing to see our little community come together in a unified goal.

The gear used for this short photo walk was my trusty M9 and an old, 1958 Canon 50mm LTM, also known as the Japanese Summilux.