I rode out Typhoon 11 in Atami, a small resort town on the eastern side of the Izu Peninsula. Throughout the day, the storm was forecast to make landfall to my west, but I expected a dramatic, last minute turn to the east, bringing the intense northeastern eyewall directly overhead. Fortunately, intuition and patience paid off, as the storm behaved almost exactly as I expected. The center crossed the Izu Peninsula just south of Atami, placing the city in eyewall conditions for a solid two to three hours. Maximum sustained winds were probably around 100 mph, with gusts in the 120-130 mph range. Basically, the wind reached a threshold at which walking was nearly impossible.

Here is some horrible shaky-cam video from about an hour before the strongest winds arrived. When things got really out of hand, I was stuck outside doing a report. My producer and I had to take shelter behind a building for about a half hour, lest we get our heads ripped off by flying debris.

Since everything is built out of reinforced concrete here, damage was light to moderate. In Atami, damage was primarily limited to downed trees, mutilated fences, and flooded roadways. Unfortunately, the storm claimed one life.