Two from the South China Morning Post, September 23:
Shenzhen scrambles as Super Typhoon Ragasa nears China’s tech hub: ‘wartime readiness’
Storm’s approach sees demand for supplies surge, inundating important delivery services, after southern Chinese city put on highest alert
As Super Typhoon Ragasa barrels down on southern China, the country’s tech and manufacturing hub has gone into emergency lockdown mode.
With the highest alert level declared, officials in Shenzhen – the southern manufacturing powerhouse with a reputation as China’s Silicon Valley – sounded the alarm for “wartime readiness”.
Residents responded by scrambling to stockpile supplies, boarding up or taping windows, and bracing for what forecasters are saying could be one of the most ferocious storms to hit the region in years.
Amid the rush, online delivery platforms struggled to keep up, inundated by orders from anxious residents keen on securing sufficient food, water and daily necessities to wait out the storm and its potential aftermath.
A staff member with delivery service provider Meituan’s online-to-offline Xiaoxiang Supermarket told the Post: “We’re still working through a huge backlog of orders and don’t know when we’ll be able to finish packing them – there are just too many.”
Doris Yin, a 24-year-old originally from the inland Chinese city of Chengdu, now working at a tech start-up in Shenzhen, said she planned to stockpile food on Sunday but regretted not acting fast enough.
“I have never experienced a typhoon in my life,” she said, adding that she “started to feel anxious” when a colleague told her how fast the supermarkets were being cleared out.
On Tuesday morning, she tried to buy fresh vegetables through delivery platforms. Freshippo – a hi-tech grocery chain owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba – was the only nearby option still with stock, but it was unable to fulfil her order due to surging demand. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
“My friends told me that the stock in supermarkets like Freshippo offered the best hope, but the online orders were so overwhelming that there weren’t enough delivery workers,” Yin said.
Yin resigned herself to not getting any fresh vegetables and instead bought fruit and tofu from another online supermarket, though she remained worried that the impending storm could still result in her order being cancelled.
Ragasa was projected to make landfall in Guangdong province on Wednesday, but the wave of stockpiling had already begun surging on Monday.
Also on Monday, during a meeting chaired by Shenzhen Party Secretary Meng Fanli, he instructed city officials to “enter a state of full emergency preparedness and wartime readiness, and take the initiative in the fight”....
....MUCH MORE
And "When a typhoon hits HONG KONG":
By Brian Wang, Carlos Araujo, Catherine Ma, Davies Christian Surya, Jiang Chuqin, Joe Lo, Kaliz Lee, Rocio Marquez and Victor Sanjinez....MUCH MORE
Published September 23, 2025
Total team coverage, it's a pretty big deal.
From an earlier (Updated: 11:43pm, 22 Sep 2025) article at the SCMP:
...Ragasa, named after a Filipino word meaning rapid or fast motion, will be closest to the city on Wednesday morning, with the Observatory warning that the strength could be comparable with super typhoons Hato in 2017 and Mangkhut in 2018.
It is expected to bring hurricane-force winds with speeds of up to 230km/h (143mph) over the coming days, potentially breaking the record set in 2023 by Super Typhoon Saola, which had maximum sustained wind speeds of 210km/h....
Shipping: "Typhoon could hit Port of Hong Kong this weekend"
Buy tape. The first rule of preparing for typhoons in Hong Kong is tape the glass.
We are talking a lot of tape.*
And in 2018's "Supertyphoon Mangkhut Downgraded To Severe Typhoon":
....And here's the South China Morning Post's front page.
They're reporting that Hong Kong Has run out of tape for the windows....
And Andy Yeung via DesignBoom:
