00:00:06 John Daub: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Tokyo, the Sumida River in the center of the city. I'm at one of the points that I like to come to where the river kind of branches off this way going towards Toyosu. If you look over this way, you can see the Tokyo Skytree, just the tower just above those apartment buildings. And the water is very, very muddy. It's easier to see in the sunlight over there. We're going to go take a little tour around this area.

00:00:38 John Daub: Last night, and I can give you my account on what happened during the middle of the night, but you can already see we've got incredible blue skies in Tokyo. This is what it always looks like after a typhoon in Japan. You have awful, awful conditions, and then the next day, it is the most beautiful day. Everything has cleared out of the atmosphere, but I'm taking a somber tone. I would be rejoicing because we've been cooped up for the entire day yesterday, because we just didn't go outside except to try to find some food when we did another live stream before. But a lot of the country right now is hurting very badly because of the flooding. And you can see that the city of Tokyo is not bad at all. People are out. They've been cooped up in their houses all day. Kids are playing. Families are enjoying the sunshine. And this is a day after a typhoon in Tokyo.

00:01:36 John Daub: It wasn't always like this, though. I think it was 1959, that Typhoon Vera or Ise-wan (Ise Bay Typhoon). We don't give names to typhoons in Japan, but Ise-wan in 1959 was the deadliest typhoon. 5,000 dead, 15,000 injured, 1.5 million homeless. So this one doesn't compare. We had the death toll is 5. There's maybe 150 people missing. So it's not nearly as bad as it used to be because Japan is just so prepared. And if you do want to get more information, I highly recommend going onto NHK World. There's a free app that you can download. They have it in English. The government of Tokyo has prepared materials for tourists that are visiting Japan in cases of emergencies, of disasters like this. Very, very little loss of life. Nobody in the city of Tokyo. The closest was in Gunma, where I think one or three people were washed away and they're still looking for them.

00:03:04 John Daub: The flooding in the countryside is awful. We were seeing the images on NHK this morning, especially in Nagano. All the rivers have not been able to handle the water as well as it has here in Tokyo, where the drainage is incredible. All of the runoff from the city. Again, you have runners here enjoying the late morning sunshine. It's about 12 o'clock lunchtime now on a Sunday. But we have flooding. There's places in Nagano where people are sitting on their roofs. They can't get away.

00:03:45 John Daub: We're going to cross here the bridge. This is a point I came to because I think you'd be able to get an idea. The city of Tokyo is very much like Amsterdam in a way. Tons and tons of canals. And the reason why is because during the Edo period, they would use these canals for transport. This is Shinkawa, New River here, and we're right here on the tip. This is where I like to come from time to time. They're running because they've been cooped up all day yesterday, and they want to get out and enjoy Sunday because this would be a holiday. Flights are still, according to the latest reports, flights will be coming back soon. So the best thing to do is to check on the Narita and Haneda websites, some of the flights are still canceled. There is still some wind here. So you might want to check out some of the flights if people that are stranded. There was a lot of people stranded here yesterday. Of the 10 or so people that I talked to, like 80% of them were quite happy to be stranded because they could spend another couple of days in Japan.

00:05:04 John Daub: The wind is still here, so I might be able to catch up with Alex later today and get his impressions on the typhoon, Typhoon Hagibis. It was a super typhoon. I'm going to give you a breakdown. I'm just going to get here to the center of the bridge, but I'm going to break down what happened last night. What did we feel? What was it like in central Tokyo?

00:05:40 John Daub: So last night around 8 p.m., it started to really pick up. You could hear the wind whistling all around the apartment that we live in. We're on the sixth floor. A lot of my friends on the first floor of apartments were asked to evacuate even before the typhoon hit, which is very unusual for Japan. But again, Japan will always lean on the side of safety to the extreme because any loss of life is not tolerable. It should be in every country, of course, but it's not tolerable in Japan. We do not want to see anybody lose their life. And police have boards in front of the koban (police boxes) saying that the injuries and the deaths that have occurred in that month. And they keep track of that for the public to know that we are safe.

00:06:43 John Daub: So I'm going to talk a little bit more about the experience. Here we go. So it's about 8 p.m. And you can see the muddy water. This is all coming from upstream, upriver. A lot of it dumping into the Sumida River here and the Arakawa and the Edogawa, which have both flooded over. But you can see it's not too bad here. I was most worried about this side because this is where I normally go running. And the path goes all the way up to Asakusa and beyond. So it looks like it's clear for today. Some of the underpasses underneath the bridges are probably flooded. Well prepared.

00:07:35 John Daub: Last night around 8 p.m. The wind was going on all day, but it was about 8 p.m. that it really, really was crazy. A little bit before that, there was... The building was just starting to shake. And I thought it was the wind. I said, wow, that's a massive gust of wind shaking the building. It was an earthquake. There was a magnitude 4 or 5 off the coast of Chiba that shook Tokyo. Shindo 3 or Shindo 4, which is not a small earthquake by any means. It's a small earthquake, but it's an earthquake nonetheless. And our house shook and we found out, oh, that's an earthquake. That wasn't the wind. I wasn't any more relieved by that. It was just kind of one of these days where Mother Nature never gives Japan a break. Typhoon and earthquake yesterday. Yes, especially in Chiba Prefecture, which got rocked the hardest from the earthquake. There's no deaths from it. No tsunamis from it. Wasn't that big of an earthquake. But just remind you that you are at the mercy of the elements of nature when you do come to Japan. And being a tourist does not make you exempt. You should know or have an idea. That's why I think some of these live streams are important. You should know or have an idea of what you're getting into when you decide to book a trip to Japan.

00:09:10 John Daub: Yet today is fine for those who are joining in right now. We have beautiful blue skies. This is the typical day after the typhoon. But a lot of people in the countryside away from the city are hurting. And the typhoon has now left Japan. Falling back over to the Pacific. There are people stranded on top of their houses. Rivers have overflowed. We've seen images from Nagano Prefecture where a river up there has overflown. Flooded a town and residents are on the top of the roof looking for any salvation.

00:09:43 John Daub: But between 9 and 12, there was a lot of wind. And then I guess it was around 11 or the end of 12. It just got quiet. And I thought we were in the eye of the storm. And I asked Kanae Daub to come out here and talk to us too. But she's still tired. And she doesn't want to come out. The typhoon was pretty much over after the eye had crossed. We didn't get any backwind really. I thought it would be worse here in the city. I thought that it was a super typhoon. It would be worse. We didn't really feel the effects. I'm sure we were fortunate ones. But I slept really fine and didn't have any wind noises. We even had the window open. I had to let in some air. So that was good.

00:10:38 John Daub: But we were very much panicked that day that we didn't have enough food. And this is rightfully so. You should always again lean on being cautious. What's going to happen after now 10 minutes in the live stream. This is extremely important. What happens after the typhoon? It looks like we have a beautiful day. It's passed. But the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis. This is going to be living with us for the next week at least because the countryside and much of the rivers have flooded. A lot of the farms are along that area. We're going to lose tons of vegetables, tons of produce that come to the market here and the prices are going to skyrocket.

00:11:27 John Daub: I know from having traveled a lot is the roads are also the bridges. The roads, the infrastructure also has needs to be checked over and cleaned. So there's going to be trouble getting things into the market. So prices are going to rise because of that supply is going to be low for the next five days. I think it'll be replenished. We saw this last after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, March 11, 2011. There was the earthquake and then there was the aftermath where shops were empty with rice and cup noodles and things that you needed, bread. Eggs for a couple of weeks. It was very hard to get your hands on any supplies not just because the shops were out of it, but because they couldn't replenish the stores fast enough or get it to the city of Tokyo.

00:12:16 John Daub: So even the tourists here didn't go out to eat and have all the choices. Or any. There's some scout boats now on the river by the city of Tokyo going around looking and scouting the damage. Yeah, this is the first city boat that I've seen on the river. I haven't seen space boat for those who love the space boat, which is the sightseeing bus of Tokyo.

00:12:45 John Daub: Yeah, I'm pretty sure if they can confirm the safety of the stadiums the Rugby World Cup will continue again. Kanae and I, we didn't... we had really strong winds leading up to 9 p.m. Which is supposed to be when the center of the storm hit there was an eerie, eerie silence. Just everything went quiet. And then the winds never really picked up again. It's going on to about 11, midnight. There were some winds but nothing like what we had expected in the city of Tokyo. The typhoon went pretty much right over us. It could be in the area that we're living in or the building surrounding us, but we heard really strong winds going all around us the windows shaking. It was a typical like a hurricane force thing a hundred miles per hour winds, which is very very strong for the Pacific. We have weaker typhoons than hurricanes because the Pacific Ocean is cooler than the Atlantic. The Atlantic has much more violent storms because of the warmer waters there and there's probably other reasons because of that.

00:13:51 John Daub: This is also an update to my family. We're safe. And then we woke up this morning to sunshine. I remember opening up the blinds at 8 a.m. about three hours ago and I was just very very shocked at the stark difference. But in what three four hours can do and people are out and about now. There is some wind but just a little leftover. Five people are reported to have died last night. 15 are missing. We're always worried about the elderly those who don't get the information or don't have family to tell them that a typhoon is coming. They go outside and then they get lost. Those are typical situations that happen. Japan's one of the oldest countries in the world. We have a very large senior citizen population.

00:15:03 John Daub: I'm just shocked right now that the Sumida River did not overflow beyond one two meters. What made this storm extremely dangerous or worrying was the fact that we had a full moon last night and the tide was up. This is the worst. I guess you would call it the perfect storm. I think Noshiro Abroad called this the perfect storm when we talked on the Discord server a couple not too long ago. Maybe about six eight hours ago. And it pretty much was and that was the biggest worry because of the full moon because the high tide. This was going to be a really tough situation. The central Tokyo is fine. Again, we have the best drainage in maybe the world because we're set up for it. Walkways are now. I think there might have been water here, but it's receded and now the tide has gone down. We started the livestream over there at that point where the river divides. Everything is still standing. Everything is good. No volcanoes erupted, but we still have some problems in the countryside and we'll be feeling the effects for a couple of weeks.

00:16:11 John Daub: The biggest typhoon to hit Japan that caused the greatest damage was Typhoon Vera in 1959. They called it that but we call it Ise-wan. Japan typically does not name the typhoons. They'll give them numbers. This was typhoon number 19 in Japan. Nobody calls it Hagibis. That's a Western thing. We've just give them numbers and we try to forget them. So typhoon number 19 is still flooding the rivers. This Sumida River here is really brown. It's just from the runoff from upriver in the countryside. It's flooded plains and brought the residue sediment with it.

00:17:07 John Daub: So people been asking me why it's called Hagibis. I don't know how they come up with the names and I don't think it's a good thing to name typhoons. I always think that the Japanese system is better because it not only destroys a person's name. I can't think of the name Andrew and not remember Florida now, but you don't want to humanize a storm. I don't think humanizing a storm is a good thing. Think a storm should be forgotten. We should move on from it. We should remember the people that we lost in it. Not the name of the storm itself, but in Japan Hagibis is a Filipino name from the Philippines. And they have their share of typhoons and I'm sure that poor kids named Hagi in the Philippines are not happy about it.

00:18:10 John Daub: Raph writes in if I got a chance to see the purple skies. I did not wake up that early. Those who woke up at like 5:15 in the morning. I guess is about 5:15. Now the sunrise. We had a beautiful sunrise too. And I think you'll see it on Instagram because we've been up on the train the last night. We got a really nice night of sleep. We woke up pretty good. So I didn't get the... I didn't wake up for the sunrise today. But again, it is a beautiful day here. If you were stranded in Tokyo because of the typhoon your reward is for being a survivor. You can call yourself that now and you have these beautiful blue skies.

00:18:48 John Daub: Kanae was a little bit scared the sound of the... We had some lightning and thunder when the storm went through here. You could hear it rumbling but the sound of the wind. Nor did that earthquake at around 6 or 7 p.m. That accompanied the typhoon as it was coming in closer and closer. We just didn't know. PVG is fine. A tree did fall in his neighborhood, but that's all that has happened.

00:19:16 John Daub: It's a beautiful bridge here. This crosses into Tsukudajima, which is an original little island in Edo-period Tokyo where the fishermen would catch the fish and deliver that to the Shogun. They all lived on Tsukudajima. They're from Osaka. Those fishermen and the island still stands. This is all the original island. That's why they have the low-rise buildings and this is all new land over on the other side. So the skyscrapers came in just in the last 10 15 years.

00:19:47 John Daub: John any recommendations. I'll be arriving next week. Just wondering if there's anything else. Something else I should be aware of on the typhoons aftermath. I don't think so. If your hotel is here Tokyo, you're probably going to be fine. The hotels again. There's not a lot of damage. If anything, you can look here. They're doing some repairs on that building over there and nothing seems to have flown away or any no damage on it. Yeah, the only thing that you should be aware of is that it is still typhoon season. And although if you're coming to Japan in two or three weeks, we just don't know what storms are brewing. So you might want to check the weather report. Anytime you come between July and November. You should check the weather report for typhoons. There's not much you can do to prepare for it before you arrive here. But if you are here staying just be patient take things slowly look for information. Don't go outside when the winds do come follow the guidance of your hotel manager and staff ask them questions and ask your neighbors questions. Make sure you'll be able to tell the various... You want to be safe. You want to know the type of the city and the people around you. But you want to buy maybe a couple of bottles of water just in case because we don't know what's going to happen in these kinds of situations. And have some cup noodles ramen maybe some sandwiches or something for the next couple of days. You want to make sure that you have food either for yourself or to give to other people. And those are just some of the things that you can do when a typhoon is coming your way. But you can't really prepare for it. If you're coming here to travel, it just will hit you.

00:21:35 John Daub: JMA is the Japan Meteorological Agency. And they are the weather reporting agency here in Japan. And their website also has a lot of satellites and up-to-date information. I'm sure the Weather Channel and the other sites are pretty good too. This is the Sumida River right now. So some great questions coming in here. Wind is blowing hard on your mic. Yeah, there's winds coming all around. I'm trying to go into the wind so it doesn't affect too much. Hagibis, the name of the typhoon means fast. And it came and went pretty fast. Winds were 100 miles per hour. Nothing to freak out about. But I think typhoons and earthquakes and these natural disasters just sort of happen.

00:22:49 John Daub: The typhoon season should not be an excuse not to come. Because September and October look like this. Beautiful skies. There's a chance of a typhoon. But they come and go so fast. And Japan is so prepared for it. You should not worry about it. It's just something that you will live through. One of our moderators said he's been through two of them when visiting Japan. The loss of life and injuries is very, very low. Unless you're walking around outside. You don't have anything to worry about.

00:23:26 John Daub: The United States in 1959 really loaned a lot of help to Japan after Typhoon Vera. Or what we say in Japan, Ise-wan. And that partnership still goes on today. And I'm sure the U.S. will offer help to Japan for the stranded people that are on top of the roof. Right now, the Japan Self-Defense Force and local agencies are up and running right now to get people that are stranded on the roofs in Nagano and other areas around Japan so that they're safe. And these little things are big things. They're probably little things in the international news. But they're big things here in Japan. And the country is well prepared to take care of them.

00:24:15 John Daub: Do you have anything that you want to ask? By all means. You can leave it. Leave a comment here or in the comment section after this in the playback. I really hope that these videos have some kind of value for people that watch these back. Also, if you hit the like button, I do appreciate that too. I want to ask more people about their experiences. And I think for the main channel, this might be a pretty good video to produce. And before a storm, have a really well-made video documenting what you can do when a typhoon hits, how you can be prepared, and what you can do from home, which is basically not that much, but what you can do to be prepared before you make a trip to Japan and the times that typhoons are strongest here.

00:25:14 John Daub: There was a lot of damage. We really don't know the morning after, but the reports are from the news that a lot of the rivers outside of Tokyo have flooded over. We received very quickly a large amount of rain. Some places up to one meter of rain in like one or two hours time. And that's just too much for any drainage to handle. Tokyo was fine. We had places in the city of Tokyo that received a lot of rain really quickly too, more than in other places because of the bands of rain affected each neighborhood in Tokyo differently as well. So there's no consistency in the storm. We didn't have any rain like this. But our experience was that it came and went really fast. And the name Hagibis means speed. That's a good thing. Except for the speeds of the winds, which are 100 miles per hour, which was a record, I believe. But the buildings in Japan are very, very strong. Hakone received 100 millimeters of rain, which is a lot. That's a crazy amount of rain in a short amount of time. In some countries, that's like a year's worth in an hour.

00:26:34 John Daub: So we're going to be fine here in Japan. But it's going to take a couple of weeks before we know the total extent of the damage. Those who are riding the Shinkansen should be pretty patient. I think the Shinkansen should be up and running. But after a storm, JR will usually check every inch of the Shinkansen track to make sure that there's no damage. That there's no possibility of a derailing. Nothing's on the tracks. Everything, the integrity of the electrical lines above is good. JR is safety first. So just be patient if you're waiting for the Shinkansen to start up again. I know that they were canceled yesterday from a certain time. Only certain routes on the line were running between Osaka and Nagoya and places that were not heavily affected.

00:27:43 John Daub: Oh, and I'm trying to think of the stuff that happened over the last couple of days here. Our flight got canceled a day before the typhoon hit. Which is why we had to jump on the last Shinkansen on Friday. And that was pretty crazy for us. Tokyo Disneyland was closed yesterday. It was the second time in its history since daily operations began. And the first time since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 that they closed the park. Which is pretty incredible. That's how much precaution Japan took. They closed Tokyo Disneyland on a weekend. And Tokyo Disneyland's probably not happy about that. On a weekend. That's a significant amount of revenue loss for that company. The Oriental Land Company is who owns Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. But safety first again. If anyone had lost their life, that would be the worst thing for their reputation. They were not prepared enough. That's what that means. So it's a big black mark on any city, any area that has a loss of life. So you have to be very careful on that. Tokyo Disneyland was closed. They should be operating from 2 p.m. today, I think. That's what one of our Discord servers, who does one of the Tokyo Disney websites told me yesterday.

00:29:11 John Daub: So all this... Life should be getting back to normal. Be a little bit patient. Safety first as businesses and transportation, everything checks. I haven't seen too many buses go by. So bus services might be not running at full capacity right now. It is Sunday. So just take it easy. Just relax a little bit. Maybe you have to change your plans a little bit. But don't... we're still alive. And 100 years ago, this storm would have killed tens of thousands here in Japan. But today, we're so prepared for it. Only five. And I say only, but that's if you compare it to 100 years ago. But that's a significant drop from 100 years ago. So we could say that we're quite lucky and quite blessed. That's the other side. That's where Tsukiji Market used to be and Kachidoki Bridge in the distance. And we have beautiful blue skies today.

00:30:08 John Daub: There were a lot of shelters. There were questions on the homeless. Japan has a disaster book that has all of the plans laid out. And police officers and local leaders know where homeless hang out. And they bring them into shelters if they can. I don't think anybody would decline that. So everybody was safe. I haven't heard any reports on any of the media here in Japan of any deaths in Tokyo. It is very, very quiet on the river though. If you noticed, it's very rare to have no boats. We've had only two boats go by this whole live stream. There's every indication that after 2 p.m. today that most of the businesses in Japan will continue.

00:31:10 John Daub: I got one more story I got to tell you. This is the story that really impacted me yesterday. I'm just going to walk up here a little bit. The story... It's only like a 30-second story. But it really impacted me. And I told Kanae this too. And she just shook her head. This is Japan. So yesterday when I did that live stream and just right here on the corner. We didn't have any food in our refrigerator. We were quite worried. We had a couple bottles of water from the train trip. I think we had one instant ramen. And our refrigerator had died the day before. So we had to unplug it and throw everything away. So we had to start from scratch. It was the worst timing possible for that to happen. The supermarkets were all closed. They were closed yesterday because of the oncoming storm. They didn't want staff to be stuck and trapped here and not be able to get home.

00:32:12 John Daub: But Lawson's was closed. That's a convenience store here. And we did find a convenience store that was open. It was FamilyMart. FamilyMart was open for us. And they had eggs. They had milk. They had supplies. Very little. But they were doing the best the staff was to replenish them with the stuff in the back. Not to just put enough out there so it doesn't make it like people running for it and causing problems. Which is good. They did a really good job of it. Because the line was always long in that convenience store because it was the only place open. And I asked the staff when I was leaving the shop. I said, What time are you open till today? Because I know it was only 11 or 11 p.m. And the storm wasn't supposed to make landfall until about 6 p.m. And I said, What time are you open to? I'm sure you're closing around 6. And he said, No. FamilyMart is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And I'm like, What? How can this be? This is crazy. I said, So what... Are you going to be able to get home tonight? That's what I asked him. And he said, No.

00:33:22 John Daub: Here's this guy. He's working probably a minimum wage which is like $10 an hour here in Japan. He's dedicated to the job because of his team, the company, the company's motto. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He's here despite the typhoon to make sure that local residents like myself can get supplies. Those who came back from Fukuoka from a trip and don't have anything in the refrigerator. To me, that really moved me. The dedication, the determination, the omotenashi (hospitality) spirit to still keep that store open. And there are risks to that. Things could be very bad. The windows could... I mean, there's lots of stuff that could go wrong. But they weren't risking their lives, but they were giving their time. They were going above and beyond their duty. Of course, they were paid for it. And the convenience store did very good business. But I was just really moved by it. I know some people say, How dare FamilyMart make their workers work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But on the flip side of it, I think that also workers and residents see the other side of it. That the employees and the company really cares to stay open at this time. Lawson's was closed. That particular Lawson's. Maybe if a convenience store had gone out of stuff, they'd close. This one FamilyMart was still open and we were able to get our stuff. And I was very thankful. And I gave the guy a big thank you and really low bow to the worker. And I just could not show enough appreciation. For what he was doing. And I wanted him to know that he was being appreciated too. Because we just take for granted sometimes the people who are working in a convenience store. But if you just ask them a question like, Are you going to be able to go home tonight? You know, how... Are you going to have to work for 24 hours straight? And he says, yes. That really moves me.

00:35:36 John Daub: To me, that's how I want to sign off this video. So, big thank you to the employees of FamilyMart. Not so much to FamilyMart. It's a company. But to the workers of FamilyMart. And the other convenience stores that stayed open for us during the storm. Hello. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication. We really do appreciate it. The FamilyMart was safe. I checked on it. To see if he'd gone home this morning. The worker that I talked to. And he did. He was home. And I don't know if he got home safely. But I know that he did leave as soon as the morning had come.

00:36:16 John Daub: The dedication of Japanese workers. And how good and competent they are with their jobs. Cannot be understated in times of emergency. People are very calm and pulled together. And no looting. Nothing like this. But to me, that moved me and Kanae as well. Last night. We were thinking about the other people. The people that were out there still working. Despite the storm. And we were safe in our house. So that's all I have to say about that. I hope everybody's well. If you're in Japan, take care. Just be patient with the services. And leave any comments below. If you have any questions. Or you have something that you want to share about typhoons. I really do appreciate sharing. Down below. Thanks everybody. Be safe wherever you are. I'll see you in the next live stream.