If you have already read #9 then you know Da Nang and central Vietnam have had a rough bout of storms. What I didn’t know as I was publishing the last Dragon Diaries, was another named storm was preparing to make landfall less than 2 days later. A hundred miles or so north of Da Nang. Storm Nangka was barreling down. Three days after Nangka another tropical storm. This time an unnamed depression would wreak havoc across Da Nang and the surrounding provinces.
The city and region just hadn’t had time to dry out from the first three. Even though the last storm was much less intense than the first three, Its wrath was absolute. There are many cliches I could use to describe the aftermath, but it was just more than the infrastructure could handle. The school was called off again last week, and Diem and I went to get the girls.
Nangka Dissipates
As Nangka dissipated into Laos and the most recent depression hit Da Nang and the surrounding provinces the death toll was already at 30 confirmed and many were still missing. I can say that in my lifetime I have never observed firsthand the amount of rain and heavy winds. It at times lasted for days and days. Howling winds all night, debris hitting the outside walls, it just never seemed to relent. We may have gotten a day with less wind, but the rain never stopped, and the wind always returned.
To date, hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from the hardest-hit areas. The last time I checked over 100,000 homes were inundated, and over 300 were completely washed away. Thousands of acres of rice being prepared to harvest have been lost. In addition, it is estimated that over a million food animals have been lost in floods. Sitting in the middle of the disaster, the outskirts of Da Nang have been heavily affected, as well as the surrounding areas have been heartbreaking.
The Embassy weighs in
The disaster has been so profound the US embassy released a statement a few days ago.
The U.S. Mission in Vietnam expresses our deepest condolences to the people of Vietnam for the loss of life, destruction of property, and displacement of people due to the flooding in central Vietnam. We stand together with the Government and the people of Vietnam as they mourn their loved ones, address the damage caused by this terrible flood, and move forward, as the people of Vietnam have always done. We pledge to assist you in your work to rebuild. With USAID’s leadership, the U.S. Mission in Vietnam continues to support Vietnam’s disaster relief efforts and plans are underway to provide additional assistance.
US Embassy HANOI, October 14, 2020
The Urge To Help
My wife Diem has been keeping very close attention to the unfolding situation, and we are working on getting to some severely hit areas to volunteer. If these things were happening back in Georgia in my community I would do all that I could. I feel no different now. This has become my community and we will do everything we can to help those in need.
At this point there haven’t been many places in Vietnam I haven’t been through, many of these places I’ve actually walked in. To see a street I once strolled in and only know it to be that place because of a sign 10 feet off of the ground is tough. These floods and storms are very real to me. Tangible and palatable. So I will do what I know best to do, whatever I can do.
Click the links below for Videos and stories about the recent disasters in Vietnam.
More dead from landslides in central Vietnam.
A million people are believed to be affected by the floods in Vietnam.
A man and his family cope with living in a village 2 feet underwater.
One of the first videos to come out in the early days of the disaster. Released on October 11.
For an article we did on Hue click here. There are many pictures you can compare to the video. It was hard for me, such a city steeped in history and lore. I fell in love with Hue and its people, to see it in such a situation is heart-wrenching.
