Storm Shadows

Echoes of War in the Face of Nature’s Fury

3 min read

AsCyclone Alfred bears down on Australia’s eastern coast in early March 2025, the boundary between past and present blurs for me. My daughter’s methodical preparations in Queensland — water stored in bathtubs, emergency supplies catalogued, escape routes planned — transport me across decades to another crisis where I stood sentinel over my own young family.

The years were 1990-1991. The Gulf War cast its shadow across Dubai, where I lived with my wife and three children, all under four years old. While nature threatens my daughter’s family today, mankind’s capacity for cruelty haunted us then.

When Saddam Hussein’s tanks rolled into Kuwait in 1990, the comfortable expatriate bubble in the Gulf region shattered. His brazen defiance of international demands to withdraw was punctuated by chilling threats of chemical warfare — threats given terrible credibility by Iraq’s documented use of poison gas against Iran years earlier.

Dubai’s response to the crisis laid bare the stark hierarchies of expatriate life. British executives at my bank swiftly evacuated their families to the safety of the UK. At the same time, middle managers like myself were quietly expected to remain, keeping operations running through whatever might come. For Asian workers like me, sending our families home wasn’t financially viable — we faced the storm together or not at all.

Bank leadership attempted reassurance with promises of a Boeing 747 allegedly waiting at Dubai Airport, ready to whisk us to Bombay at the first sign of a chemical attack, with $2000 per family upon arrival. None of us had seen this mythical plane, but in times of crisis, hope becomes its currency.

The information vacuum only heightened our anxiety. In those pre-internet days, CNN’s Peter Arnett became our lifeline to understanding what was happening beyond our sealed windows. On Dubai’s streets, an influx of Kuwaiti refugees added to the chaos, their driving reflecting their desperate circumstances.

My apartment became a fortress against invisible threats. While my daughter now secures her home against wind and rain, I meticulously sealed windows with masking tape, creating makeshift protection against chemical agents that might never come. We stocked water, food, and medicine, transforming our home into a bunker where my young children played, blissfully unaware of the preparations surrounding them.

Two generations, two crises — one natural, one man-made. Both reveal the primal instinct to shield our children from forces beyond our control. As my daughter fills her bathtub with water today, I see my younger self in her actions — the determined parent standing between their family and the gathering storm.