Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Chatting on the Plot => Topic started by: Growster... on October 17, 2021, 07:28
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Not a good day...
Pic 1) The local school, with a temporary classroom under a tree!
Pic 2) My rented car (had just started a new job a fortnight before)!
Pic 3) Our first greenhouse! Some of the glass had blown several yards across the garden, and stayed intact! We managed to get some replacements quite quickly, and used it to cook everything and have our lunch in, as we had no electricity for a few days!
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We were lucky and power was restored within 24 hours. Cooked on a camping stove which the kids loved. Shed was redesigned, it was on its last legs and in the wrong place so we were galvanized into sorting it. Husband was due for day surgery on the Tuesday. Only 'good' thing was that the hedge round the garden stayed intact and stopped our dog getting out
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That night was frightening, the children and I were lying on cushions on the dining room floor, and we could here roof tiles crashing down. Lost most of the back of the roof, but when it was replaced I got the local builder to put in a decent sized Velux window, all covered within the insurance 'estimates', which were generous at the time :)
All the electricity was overhead cables and a lot of these were just laying across roads and some were still sparking :ohmy: I still got the kids up and ready for school, thinking it was the safest place for them, but some of the modular classrooms had folded like flatpacks, so had to walk them home again *crazy*
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Great pictures, Mr G :ohmy:
It was a very frightening night. I thought our lounge windows were going to blow in but luckily we only lost a couple or ridge tiles. Our two sons slept upstairs in dormer rooms in a loft extension, so they came down to our bedroom in the lee of the wind downstairs. We had a walk in our local park the next day… dozens of trees uprooted.
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Was it a tornado, or powerful straight-line winds?
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Just wind.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987
Winds gusting up to 100mph and 15 million trees blown down.
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A once in 200 year storm for the uk according to the Met Offce
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/case-studies/great-storm
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And I did the cooking for a few days, on a small BBQ raised up on some bricks!
It was actually quite cosy in there during the evening, as it was warm, we had a few bottles of home-made red, and a neighbour (in the house on the left, out of pic), lent us power via a long cable, so at least we kept the freezer alive!
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Bet you still have that jumper too!
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I had a six week old baby and sat in the dark in the middle of the night for a feed listening but not able to see what was going on outside was frightening. We lived in Aldershot at the time and only lost a few ridge tiles and a brick wall out in the garden. The next morning when we got power back and could watch what had happened on the TV I remember my eldest daughter (then aged 2) becoming inconsolable because we had been on holiday that year to the Island and she mis-heard the news that Shanklin Pier had blown away and only heard it as the Island had blown away. My parents lived in Fleet and lost power for about four days. Emergency dash to get as much of the contents of their freezer in ours, or to cook everything else so it wasn't lost. I'm sure now that after Michael Fish told us the rumour it was coming was untrue is why now we get so many weather warnings.
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I remember the drive to school the following morning - more like a slalom along one stretch of road :ohmy:
But I had forgotten the anniversary until I just logged on, so thanks for starting the thread Mr G.
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Yorkie, a chum working on the Preston Bypass didn't even know what had happened until he rang his wife (here) the day after!
Did you get the gale as well?
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I grew up in Hertfordshire, and so yes we did get it there!
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I grew up in Hertfordshire, and so yes we did get it there!
When I was working in Herts, I couldn't go anywhere near Letchworth, Campton, Stevenage or Baldock, without wondering how the roads and houses might have looked when my family lived and worked around there!
Just got that odd feeling of 'deja vu', which was silly really as it was way before my time...
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I was driving around London that night - it was hairy! Lorries tipped on their side with the wind and cars all over the place.
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I was driving around London that night - it was hairy! Lorries tipped on their side with the wind and cars all over the place.
They were doing that around here, John!
I sometimes wish we had digital cameras around then and sometimes am glad we didn't!
I knew a gorgeous stretch of road near Matfield/Paddock Wood here, and there had been a great row of huge pine trees. They all fell over, and laid down like a row of pencils, and I was heartbroken to see it all.
The tape I had in the car just reminds me of the devastation we saw around here, and it still hurts.
Pat Metheny - 'As falls Wichita so falls Wichita Falls'. (Not on YouTube any more)...