The half-typhoon day for Tuesday announced on Monday evening by the Kaohsiung and Tainan city governments drew harsh criticism, especially after video clips showing people being nearly blown over on Tuesday spread online.
It was not the first time mayors have been slammed for announcing a typhoon day too late or too early, and it will surely not be the last.
TV news channels on Tuesday reported that parents in Tainan and Kaohsiung braved strong winds to pick up their children from a half-day at school. A clip of a grandmother struggling to right her scooter after winds knocked her over and being helped by a car driver was widely shared on Facebook. Reports said she was on her way to pick up her grandchild, as her son was at work.
Many said it is vulnerable families without cars who could easily be harmed. The fury was fanned by remarks in response to criticism of the decision to only declare a half-day off, with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) saying she was not Santa Claus and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) saying that too many typhoon days would cripple the city’s competitiveness.
Both later apologized for inconveniencing their residents.
Taichung residents are probably the most wary of the consequences of such “inconveniences.” A high-school student and his mother heading home after school were swept away by a flood on a collapsed bridge during Typhoon Toraji in 2001, while the father was found dead under the bridge two weeks later, reportedly due to an accidental slip when he was searching for his wife and son. The city has not declared a half-day for a typhoon since.
However, a decision to declare a full day off can also backfire. Then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) received his share of criticism in 2013 when he announced a typhoon day for Tropical Storm Trami, which turned out to be not as threatening to Taipei as was expected. Crowds of people packed movie theaters, department stores and karaoke bars.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said he regretted and was “sorry to the nation” after announcing a second day off during Typhoon Dujuan in September last year, with the storm waning on the second day.
The Central Weather Bureau has also been frequently inundated with criticisms. A Democratic Progressive Party legislator called on bureau Director-General Shin Tzay-chyn (辛在勤) to “apologize” for an incorrect forecast, after the bureau on Monday afternoon changed its predicted wind speed from a level that called for a day off to a forecast that did not, and stuck with the prediction until Tuesday morning when the typhoon arrived.
Shin was probably not wrong when he said that the bureau was used to being held responsible for decisions regarding typhoon days off, but should the agency apologize when the lawmaker himself said that “science has its limits?”
Former bureau director-general Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that safety should not be weighed against financial losses and called for the typhoon day threshold to be lowered, adding that government officials should not be afraid to grant people unnecessary typhoon days, “or the dispute will never end.”
The decision to call a typhoon day is a political one, based on data, and there is sure to be concomitant political accountability. Forecasts are understandably less prone to error as typhoons draw nearer and city governments should not be afraid to wait to announce days off late at night or early in the morning if they want to avoid misjudgements.
If necessary, they could even use Saturdays to make up for days off that turned out to be unnecessary.
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