December 17

Cyclone Evan hit Samoa yesterday and made his presence know to us at 3 a.m. The wind and rain were so fierce that is woke us up. I have an awful fascination with this. Having never been in a cyclone/hurricane I want to know what it is like and yet, I am really nervous. I wanted our landlady to put up the window guards that the men made this summer, but she seems in no hurry to do it. We have power and it is humid, so we have the AC on in our bedroom and in the living room. The service center is closed, but no one called us from there to tell us. Elder Wells called this morning to tell us that we should not go in. He found out from the Hogges who serve at mission office couple. The mission office is also closed. FHE for tonight at the Davis home is also cancelled.

The wind is coming from the north west which is where the cyclone is geographically from Fiji. It has rained hard since 3 a.m. and with the wind at tropical storm levels our windows and door on the west side of the house began to leak early this morning. We have louvered windows and when they are shut they do not seal. I can stick my finger between the top/bottom of the glass and the wall around the window. Our living room door on the west side (we also have a door in the carport which is on the south) has had a towel between it and the gate since we got here. I thought the towel was to keep critters from coming into the house under the door until today. I realize now it is to sop up the water from driving rain.  By 6 o'clock this morning we were wiping off the window ledges, and moping up water by the door about hourly.  I washed the first batch of towels we used and then realized that I could not wash and dry towels fast enough to keep up.

We found two really great websites to watch the progression of Cyclone Evan. We had watched them last night and it looked like Evan would stay way out to sea west of Fiji which would mean that high waves and storm surges would be Fiji's only concern, but this morning the cyclone has shifted east and now it looks like the eye wall will be just off the west coast.  People have been evacuated from low lying areas of Lautoka, Ba, Rakiraki, Nadi, and of course all the little villages that no one mentions.  I was surprised to hear that one island resort on the cyclone side of Nadi had sent all the vacationers into Nadi, but all the resort employees had stayed on the island ostensively to protect the resort.

By 10 o'clock we were bored so we started to watch movies.  We would watch, wipe/mop up, and watch again. The wind got so loud that we had to turn up the volume and then we could not hear all the words. It never let up. The beautiful bread fruit tree out our bedroom window lost its top third.  We watched as the tall coconut trees bent until we thought they would break.  Somewhere I had read that palm trees survive cyclones because they move their fronds straight into the air which means they catch less wind.  Yup!  The one palm tree in our backyard did exactly that.

By 5:00 p.m. I had had it with the wind noise, so I thought I would fix us a nice meal to get my mind off it.  It worked and then I noticed at around 5:30 that there was no wind. None. Lots of rain still, but no wind. Now the eye did not pass over us, so I am not sure why the wind stopped, but by 6 o'clock it was really blowing again.

We have had power all day until it got dark.  Right at dark the power went off.  How does that happen?  We had purchased several candles and torches (flashlights) so we were fine except for the humidity and not AC.  We were in bed by 10 p.m. because we were bored.  The wind was still blowing, the rain was still coming down in torrents, but we had had enough.

I am glad that we have been safe.  We have been praying all day the all Fijians would also be safe.  We will see what tomorrow brings.