Typhoon Agnes
On August 21, the typhoon made landfall in the southern provinces.
It came ashore at ten that morning, southeast of Geoje Island, and an hour later it slammed into Busan. The blow was brief, but its force was tremendous. Typhoon Agnes was vast in its own right, and its central pressure was the highest of any typhoon ever to strike the Republic of Korea—higher even than the infamous Sarah or Maemi. Winds of nearly ninety miles an hour tore through the city and swept away every ramshackle building in Busan. The worst of it fell on the board shanties of the barrack village beneath Yongdusan.
A later generation might ask how a house could simply blow away, but the houses of that time were nothing like the houses that would come after. Walls were thrown up from boards lashed together any which way; roofs were sheets of waterproof cloth held down with stones and cord. In a gale like that, it was only natural that a house should lift into the sky, or come apart as if it had never been built at all.
Before noon the typhoon had already passed through Busan. Over the next four or five hours it was expected to drive north, laying damage across South Gyeongsang, the interior of North Gyeongsang, and Gangwon Province.
Kijo had reached Busan on the eighteenth, before the country entered the storm's sphere of influence. From the relief headquarters Oh Yang-soo had established, he received the reports of the damage. The typhoon had only grazed the city, and already the power lines and telephone lines were completely down. The streetcars had stopped dead. The phones were useless.
Even so, he could still take damage reports from Cheongsan's relief teams over amateur radio. A handful of Korea's few HAMs—amateur radio operators—were helping him. The president of Cheongsan Radio Communications had originally meant to bring in amateur equipment against a communications blackout and secure a license from the Ministry of Communications, but the ministry had never granted it. Kijo had gone instead to the Korean Amateur Radio League, founded in 1955, and asked for help. They had answered a request made in the public interest.
Word of the damage across Busan kept coming in, and Kijo passed it on to the police and the fire stations. Simply telling them where relief was most urgent, he thought, would already be of use. Then he left the headquarters and went out to see the stricken districts for himself.
Cheongsan's relief teams had pitched camps on school athletic fields, raising tents and stacking supplies so the displaced would know where to gather. In Busan alone, sixteen schools had been hit—seventy-six classrooms destroyed outright, and four more half-ruined. For each school they had stationed ten water trucks and ten trucks loaded to the rails with hardtack, and they handed drinking water, hardtack, and tents to people who had lost their homes.
Cheongsan Transport, with more than twelve hundred trucks of its own, came into its own. Six hundred had been positioned between Busan and Daegu, concentrating supplies and knitting a transport net around the great cities. Even with so many committed, hauling American military freight was not seriously disrupted.
Kijo watched medical students treating the injured with simple medicines. Even a minor cut could become a grave threat to the poor, who had no clean water and lived in filth. Disinfecting a wound before infection set in mattered more than anything.
With relief organized around the schools, Busan did not look as if it would come apart. He had named Oh Yang-soo—known to the local officials, and a man of wide acquaintance—relief chief for the region, and that made the teams far easier to run. With Department Managers Jeon Hyeon-su and Oh Seok-mun, and Presidents Kim Moon-hwan and Kim Hae-soo, in command, the organization was as tight as it could be. Workers from Cheongsan Seasoning, Cheongsan Defense Industries, and Cheongsan Electronics joined the recovery, and so did the men from Kim Jong-hee's Korea Explosives. There was no shortage of hands.
Kijo left Busan in Oh Yang-soo's care and set out for Masan with Ma-ryang in a jeep.
There he checked the harbor and the coast. The fishing boats had taken shelter in port beforehand, but the typhoon's power was such that many of them had still gone down inside the harbor. What satisfied him was that the fishermen and the people along the shore had suffered almost no loss of life. It was the crystal radios he had distributed. For days before the storm, people had listened and made ready, and because of that the toll in lives had not turned catastrophic.
Content, he looked over Masan and turned north again. In many places the railway had washed out and bridges had collapsed, but he had mapped his routes in advance. Even if he had to double back, he could stay on roads that were safe.
After Masan he reached Gyeongju. There the members of the Patjuk Gathering who shared his purpose, together with Jeon Hyeong-pil, had opened a relief center and were helping people. Chang Key-young had brought reporters from the Hankook Ilbo to cover the damage and carry the news across the country. Cho Choong-hoon was moving supplies on the trucks of Hanjin Trading. Lee Hwa-ryong had brought his younger brothers and gone out to the work with his own hands. Jeon Hyeong-pil, fearing for the cultural treasures, had spent his own money digging drainage around them and reinforcing the works with sandbags. Kim Doo-han, busy with his duties in the Assembly, had not been able to come.
"If we hadn't prepared ahead of time, the damage would have been far worse."
Jeon Hyeong-pil said it to Kijo, and the others agreed.
"We'll look after this place. You go on."
Cho Choong-hoon showed him the relief goods the Hanjin trucks had hauled in.
"That's right. Head somewhere else."
Chang Key-young clapped him on the shoulder.
"Leave the children to me. I can't promise them jajangmyeon, but I won't let them go hungry."
Lee Hwa-ryong squared his shoulders as he said it.
Kijo thanked the Patjuk Gathering and moved on to Pohang.
There, relief was in the hands of Kim Seogwang, with Shim Hansu and Seong Dae-ik beside him. Pohang lay against the sea, and the damage was severe. Kijo had already judged that he had no power to stop the harm along the coast, and he had ordered only passive measures—evacuation above all. Stack the supplies on high ground, he had told them, and teach the residents to flee there. Before the typhoon struck, Cheongsan's department managers had used the trucks to move the old and the weak to the relief base first.
On the playground of the elementary school they were using as a shelter, Seogwang made his report.
"The surge rolled in and just swept away everything close to the water. We got the people out before that. Nobody died."
Kijo encouraged the three of them—Kim Seogwang, Shim Hansu, and Seong Dae-ik—the men who had taken the hardest stretch of coast. When the overall plan was drawn, Pohang had been written off early. There was no stopping a sea surge rolling in off the water. That they had saved lives was fortune enough.
"You've had a hard time of it. From here on, give yourselves to relief and recovery."
At his words the headquarters trio smiled brightly.
"Ma-ryang. You drove all the way here—that was rough going. The roads are bad, so take it easy. Look after the president."
Seogwang clapped him on the shoulder. Ma-ryang, who had suffered less than Seogwang and was now being encouraged by him, put the warmth he felt into a gruff reply.
"You look after yourself."
The three department managers, who knew his temper, all laughed. Kijo smiled too and climbed into the jeep.
The fourth stop, Yeongcheon, was under Lee Man-ik of Cheongsan Construction. The district ordinarily saw little rain and little snow, and for that reason it was thick with reservoirs. In the monsoon and in a typhoon those reservoirs became the source of disaster, so Man-ik had brought in heavy equipment and reinforced the embankments of the ones at risk. In only two months he had accomplished a great deal. Kijo praised him for how little damage had fallen on the ground where his hand had been at work.
"You've truly worked hard, President Lee. You've saved a great many people."
"It was you who gave me this duty, Mr. President. I only did as you instructed."
Seeing Kijo, Man-ik's eyes grew hot, and he kept blinking.
When Kijo had sent the heavy equipment south at his own expense, taking no payment, Man-ik had not been able to understand him. And when they carried out the flood-prevention work for nothing, the frustration burned so hot that by evening he needed a drink before he could sleep. But once the long monsoon and the violent typhoon had passed, and the worth of that work stood plain, he saw that he had been wrong. When the people of Yeongcheon whom the work had protected thanked him—saying they had lived because of the president—he was at a loss. He had done it against his own grain, and the man who deserved the thanks was someone else.
"Mr. President, have you been to the coast?"
Ma-ryang, standing beside them, answered for Kijo.
"On the coast the surge came in, and there wasn't a thing to be done. Still, the people had already gone to the shelters we told them about. Nobody died."
"I see. That's a real mercy."
Kijo encouraged Lee Man-ik, who kept looking apologetic, and went on to Yeongju.
Near Yeongwol, in Yeongju, Park Hee-jun's AMKO team had charge of relief. Hee-jun had joined Kijo's disaster plan and freely given ten thousand dollars of his own money. The relief centers in Yeongju and Bonghwa were stacked with the canned goods he had laid in.
"When the typhoon was passing over, it was truly a close thing."
Hee-jun, too, had been only half convinced when Kijo first said they ought to try to lessen the damage. But the storm had done worse than he expected, and once he saw the wreckage with his own eyes, words failed him. Now a wealthy man, he was sorry he had given only ten thousand dollars. Kijo, for his part, thanked him.
"With AMKO stepping in, the displaced will have a good deal less to worry about. I'm truly grateful."
Watching him, Hee-jun was struck all over again.
How can a man be this humble?
Kijo looked over Yeongju and Bonghwa and made for his last destination, Daegu. He arrived late at night, met Ko Wang-chul, and inspected the relief stock Wang-chul had piled up.
"Have you checked the routes from Daegu out into the rest of North Gyeongsang?"
"Of course, Mr. President. Every one of them. I laid it on thick with the drivers—if a bridge looks unsound, don't you cross it."
"Well done."
Kijo spent the night in Daegu. Lying in the inn room, he looked back over the days he had spent preparing for the typhoon. They had certainly reduced Agnes's damage and helped the people it had displaced. And yet a large regret remained in one corner of his heart. There were still many country places they had not been able to reach, and his mind was unsettled besides. He could not know how the government would take the prevention and relief work Cheongsan had carried out.
But what did it matter, one way or the other? If he saved people who had been brought low, that was enough.
He was soothing himself, staring at the ceiling, when Wang-chul, lying beside him, stirred.
"Department Manager Ko."
"...Yes, Mr. President."
When Kijo spoke his name, Wang-chul answered a little late. He seemed to have meant to pretend he was asleep, and then changed his mind.
"If you can't sleep, go out for a while."
Kijo thought he knew why. When Wang-chul signed on, he had taken several years' salary in a lump sum, saying he would use the money to settle with the women scattered here and there and end those affairs. It was never going to be that simple. A person's heart did not tidy itself so easily.
"I... Mr. President..."
"It's all right. Go on, and don't hurry."
Kijo understood him, and pitied him all the same.
"Thank you, Mr. President..."
Wang-chul got up, rumpled, and quietly made ready to leave in the dark. When he had finished, Kijo called to him.
"Department Manager Ko."
"Yes, Mr. President. What is it?"
"Live so you don't leave regrets behind."
He had more he wanted to say, but he swallowed it.
"I'm ashamed. I'm sorry, Mr. President..."
In the dark, Wang-chul dropped to his knees and apologized. For failing to keep his word, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole.
"I'll see you in the morning."
"Yes."
Wang-chul bowed and stood, and Ma-ryang, who had been snoring, spoke.
"You get a woman with child, you take responsibility!"
At the sudden thrust, Wang-chul froze for a moment.
"Yes, Department Manager Jang. Of course I should. I'll see you in the morning."
He opened the door in the dark and went out. Kijo, still looking at the ceiling, spoke to Ma-ryang.
"Are you awake even when you're snoring?"
There was no answer. Ma-ryang was still snoring.
Was that just now something he said in his sleep?
Kijo laughed without a word. What Ma-ryang had muttered was exactly what he himself had wanted to say to Wang-chul.