Who cares whether it’s Signal Number 1 or 3, or 8 or 10? HKFP explains them. The system dates from the era of sailing ships. As a mean editor who can trim 1,000 words to 300 with no problem, I would suggest that all you need is ‘nothing’ and ‘8’. The rest is pointless, unless you like ritualized crisis-building. If a typhoon is coming, just say so.
In theory, the numbered Signals indicate specific conditions, like the distance of a cyclone. But in practice there seems to have been some storm-category inflation. Almost as if an ‘8’ today is what used to be a ‘3’. To make everything fuzzier, the authorities issued an unusual ‘pre-Signal 8 alert’ at noon yesterday. Then the actual Signal 8 at 2.20 (in Macau, they did it at 5.00). Schools had been shut the whole day, while businesses were closing by mid-afternoon. Seas were starting to get rough, so anyone who needed a ferry to get home would have to do so before services stopped. But for the other 99% of the population, the weather yesterday was pretty normal until well into the evening.
The obvious argument for bigger and earlier typhoon Signals is public safety. There was a time when the HK Observatory would hold off on the Number 8 until the last minute, when everyone had a couple of hours to get home (or to the pub). The brutes didn’t even give us enough time to panic-buy.
But some might wonder whether much of yesterday’s extensive announcements and Signal-raising were about making sure officials wouldn’t be accused of not doing enough. A few cynics might even think someone was amplifying a sense of impending potential danger in order to highlight how the government was boldly taking action to protect us.
Which, in fairness, they have done, judging by the number of emergency vehicles zipping past my window this morning. But do we need the theatrics? Will they drag out the Number 8/9/10 hooplah into tonight?
“As a mean editor who can trim 1,000 words to 300 with no problem”
For SEO reasons 1,000 words or more is better. Google gives penalties and will rank your page lower if your content is under 1,000 words.
May I be the first one to express my disappointment. This is the lamest T10 I have ever experienced (and I have been here since the time of rickshaws and sampans).
The experience depends on the orientation of one’s home. While I could keep north facing living room window partially open when it was not raining, the kitchen and bathrooom were getting a bettering.
Since the regulations re provision of windows in those rooms were tweaked to allow developers to squeeze more units into a tower, many HK homes now have no cross ventilation as the windows are on one side only.
Re the media friendly official action, this probably had more to do with the fact that Guangdong and Shenzhen authorities were taking the impending typhoon very , very seriously so our guys had to demonstrate similar committment