The strong wind arrives in Beijing, shattering the ordinary 24 hours.

Text by | Zhong Yixuan, Lan Jie

Edited by | Qiao Qian

The Gale Swept into the Supermarket

The news reported that the exact time the gale arrived was 8 p.m. on the evening of April 11th, but Beijing residents didn't think so. The wind had already arrived, right in the supermarket.

By noon on April 11th, everyone knew that Beijing was going to be hit by a gale, an extreme gale of up to level 13, the strongest wind disaster warning in the past decade.

At 3 p.m. that day, Hu Tu left work early and witnessed a jaw - dropping scene at Hema Supermarket. All the green vegetables had disappeared collectively, there were no fruits, and eggs were taking the place of pork in the pork section. The Hema shelf - fillers were also very busy, trying to replenish the empty shelves. But soon, someone posted a complaint online, saying that upon closer inspection, "What they're replenishing is a mess." Instant noodles and big bags of chips had taken over the organic vegetable section.

Some people said that this was an opportunity for Hema's product managers. If the fresh produce couldn't be sold on April 11th, it might be time to consider discontinuing production. Others seriously explained that the haphazard restocking was a last - ditch effort. The headquarters would conduct remote inspections, and if the monitors showed empty shelves, the clerks would be considered slow in restocking.

The only thing for sure was that Hema was completely caught off guard by this rush of shopping. Due to the large number of people, a Hema store in Beijing had to use a loudspeaker to play on a loop, "Buy enough for today, there will be plenty online tomorrow."

(On the evening of April 11th, a Hema shelf filled with pineapples as a substitute. Photo source: A netizen on Xiaohongshu)

Far in the suburbs, Sam's Club also saw a rush of shopping on a weekday. Chen Mei, who works at a Sam's Club store, told 36Kr that the vegetable section was quickly emptied. People hoarding goods and shopping carts crowded the checkout area. Perhaps the only ones unaffected were the persistent resellers. "There were no fruits or vegetables in their shopping carts. They grabbed two carts full of Crayon Shin - chan dolls that were originally priced at 269.9 yuan but on sale for 99.9 yuan, stuffing in 10 of them."

Regardless of the extreme gale, the resellers only knew that April 11th was the discount day for Crayon Shin - chan dolls at Sam's Club.

(The discounted Crayon Shin - chan dolls snapped up by Sam's Club resellers on April 11th. Photo source: The interviewee)

There were still 3 hours until the predicted time for the gale to hit the downtown area. At 5 p.m. on April 11th, in order to prevent the wind, the median barriers on the main roads in Guomao were deliberately laid down. In Wangjing, someone saw from afar that the three - pointed star logo of Mercedes - Benz China's headquarters had been laid flat. This logo, which symbolizes the conquest of land, sea, and air, temporarily yielded to the gale. The tree - pruning project also began. Paulownia trees had their branches cut off one by one in their most glorious spring. Almost all the parks, scenic spots, and museums in the downtown area announced temporary closures one after another.

That evening, as online delivery almost came to a standstill, the sense of loss of control brought by the gale truly arrived.

In today's world where the delivery system is all - pervasive, it's hard for people to imagine that the platform's delivery capacity for the next few hours would be directly exhausted by a gale. This uncertainty was even more anxiety - inducing than facing the empty supermarket shelves.

Douzi, who lives in Chaoyang District, found that she couldn't buy any vegetables on local - life apps she knew, such as Wumart, Hema, Xiaoxiang Supermarket, and Dingdong Maicai, since the afternoon. She kept refreshing the pages. The tomatoes restocked on Hema were gone in seconds, and the chicken wings and lettuce on Xiaoxiang Supermarket only appeared for a few seconds before being snapped up by quick - handed people. "It felt like I was in a big shopping rush."

She had no choice but to accept the expensive options - high - mountain organic baby cabbages air - shipped from Yunnan and Australian grain - fed beef rolls that cost two or three times more than ordinary beef rolls. Even so, the only available delivery time was 9:30 p.m.

But Douzi didn't know that she was one of the lucky ones. A citizen who placed an order on Xiaoxiang Supermarket complained on social media that he had placed the order at 12 o'clock and scheduled the delivery for 7 p.m., but his order didn't start being delivered until 9 p.m. Half an hour later, the order was directly cancelled due to a shortage of goods.

He expressed his anger and confusion. On the other hand, the real Xiaoxiang Supermarket was overwhelmed.

Lina, a sorter at Xiaoxiang Supermarket, told 36Kr that the front - end warehouse where she worked had stopped accepting new orders in the afternoon. "We simply couldn't clear all the pre - ordered orders." People wanted to prepare for the bad weather in the next two days, and the number of orders that day was much larger than usual. "Many people bought 20 - 30 items, and each order had to be packed into at least 2 - 4 bags."

This meant that the huge pressure quickly fell on the sorters. Lina shuttled back and forth between the normal - temperature, low - temperature, refrigerated, and frozen areas that night. Her average steps per hour even exceeded 2000. She observed one of the experienced sorters who worked almost non - stop for 12 hours. That day, at least 2000 items passed through her hands.

The deliverymen were the last link. Chen Qi, a deliveryman at Xiaoxiang Supermarket, had been running around since 6 a.m. At the front - end warehouse where he worked, there were still 800 orders backlogged by 10 p.m. on April 11th. "It was completely paralyzed. The goods inside were in a mess. The station manager told us that we could only deliver what was available and refund the money for the unavailable items."

Chen Qi said that 800 orders were not the limit. The busiest station that night had 1200 orders backlogged. They didn't even have time to eat that night. "We could only take turns to eat one by one."

At 11 p.m. that night, due to the difficulty in clearing the orders, the Xiaoxiang Supermarket station where Chen Qi worked quietly changed the original delivery cut - off time from 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next day.

The gale had arrived as scheduled. At 1 a.m. on the 12th, a Beijing resident saw out of his window that the streets were like a ghost town, with only one deliveryman riding an electric bike through the wind, the bike body swaying. The wind force that night reached a maximum of level 11.

(Mercedes - Benz China's headquarters in Wangjing. Photo source: A netizen on Xiaohongshu)

The Gale Swept Through Everyone's Life

In psychology, hoarding is a planned self - protection behavior. When the unknown loss of control comes, a sufficient quantity of food and medical supplies can provide people with a sense of "control," thus alleviating anxiety.

However, people's imagination and fear of disaster weather are not only about the shortage of food and water but also about the gale's destruction of their living space, supplies, and even order.

Jia Qing, who lives in Changping District, tried almost every means to make preparations for this gale. There was a large floor - to - ceiling window in her house. Before the gale arrived, since she lived on the top floor, Jia Qing learned from social media and the homeowners' group how to secure the window. She specially bought PVC tape to tape the window. "The shop owner even called me in the middle and said that all the Deli brand tapes were sold out, and asked if I wanted other miscellaneous brands."

Finally, Jia Qing had to use a black - and - yellow warning tape to fill the window with a cross and a grid pattern. Usually, this kind of tape is used for police investigations and construction.

More anxiety spread through this window. "If the window breaks, will the mirror in my house break?" Jia Qing quickly moved the floor mirror and the dressing table to a safe place. Worried about a power outage during the gale, she bought self - heating hot pots and snacks. Afraid of getting bored, she also topped up her membership on a video - streaming website.

A blogger tried every means to protect her just - grown tulips. From using plastic wrap, to covering them with a pot lid, and even building a brick wall, she still felt it was not enough. She was busy from day to night just to withstand this gale.

Jia Qing understood this feeling of "not enough." Although the wind hadn't come yet, after making these preparations, she could finally relax the tense string in her heart a little.

(The window filled with a cross and a grid pattern. Photo source: The interviewee)

Early on the morning of April 12th, the news issued another warning of "non - essential, do not go out." But in some people's lives, this extreme gale day was just another day to make a living.

An food - delivery rider told 36Kr that on extreme - weather days, the platform didn't allow full - time riders to take leave for fear of insufficient delivery capacity. What the platform could offer them was an extreme - weather subsidy for each order. "Except for the already ultra - low - cost Pinhaofan orders, we can get a 2 - yuan subsidy for each order today."

Chen Mei, who works at Sam's Club, received a notice to go to work as usual today. Just like on normal days, she traveled almost across half of the city. But on the subway today, Chen Mei hardly saw any passengers, "except for those rushing with suitcases."

When she arrived at the store, Chen Mei was a little surprised. "There were quite a few people." Perhaps people had nowhere else to go, and going to the supermarket had become a form of comfort again.

One of the biggest changes might be that "the Sam's Club resellers are gone today." In the past, the resellers came to the store at least three times a week, often arriving in trucks to shop. Because they came so frequently, Chen Mei almost knew all of them. "Actually, they really disrupted our work. The resellers took a long time to check out, and they also snatched away some special - offer products that were only available in physical stores, so ordinary customers couldn't buy them."

Some people who hoped to make money during this gale were also on the move. Taxi driver Wang Feng said that he finished work early on the evening of April 11th because of the gale. But he heard that his friend went to Daxing Airport to pick up passengers last night and indeed got a passenger who gave a tip. He didn't finish work until 2 a.m.

But this gale didn't bring him much extra income. There were few cars on the road, and even fewer passengers. From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. today, Wang Feng only got 4 orders. He planned to go home at noon.

Didi driver Liu Ge's biggest order this morning was to take two foreigners to the airport. "They had no choice but to go back to their country." But unusually, he drove back to the city empty - handed for the first time. Since he couldn't make money, Liu Ge simply cancelled the orders from the station and the airport.

As of 12 p.m. on April 12th, more than 1200 flights were cancelled at the major airports in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei in North China. Among them, more than 900 flights were cancelled at Beijing Capital Airport and Beijing Daxing Airport, accounting for more than 40% of the total flights.

Affected by the extreme gale and other bad weather, more than 3200 domestic flights have been cancelled, reaching the highest number of flight cancellations this year.

One More Day of the Out - of - Control Life

As the strongest wind - disaster warning in the past 10 years, Beijing has almost fully utilized the governance capabilities of a megacity to resist the wind disaster in advance.

Since April 11th, the Beijing transportation department has been in a full - emergency state. 221 mountain - related bus routes have been suspended, and 15 above - ground and elevated subway line sections have been shut down. As of 7 a.m. on April 12th, due to the gale and sandstorms, 106 affected road sections in 8 provinces (regions and municipalities), including Beijing, were reported. Among them, 82 were highways, with 16 main - line closed sections and 503 individual toll - booth closures (the main line was still passable).

As of 3 p.m. today, the Beijing municipal garden department has dispatched a total of 21,956 inspection and rescue personnel. They have dealt with 843 fallen trees, 2572 broken branches, 2607 vehicle - related incidents, 30 vehicles trapped, 8 power lines pressed, 6 houses pressed, and 16 road - blockages.

By this afternoon, order had begun to gradually return. The shelves in the community supermarket were filled again with the green vegetables that had been snapped up the previous day. The supermarket owner's wife was clicking the calculator loudly. Online delivery had basically returned to normal. Chen Qi, the Xiaoxiang Supermarket deliveryman, told 36Kr that there were still many orders today, but they could basically be delivered within an hour. "As long as the wind speed isn't too high, I can be even faster."

Although this was an extreme - weather event, until 8 p.m. last night, the whole of Beijing was waiting for a gale.

This was the real sentiment on social media. A Xiaohongshu blogger interpreted the origin of this sentiment like this: "What we're waiting for isn't a gale, but a break from order. When the world presses the pause button in the roar, we can finally breathe for the sake of living itself in a justifiable way."

In the movie Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan, there is a line: Nature is cruel, but not evil. This afternoon, "The Beijing gale blew in the blue sky and white clouds" briefly made it into the top three hot topics on social media. The sky washed by the gale was clear and beautiful.

The troublesome catkins in April might also dissipate earlier because of this gale. Che Shaochen, a senior engineer at the Beijing Academy of Landscape and Forestry Sciences, said in an interview with the media that "this year, the catkin - flying period