Printer-friendly version
Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
We talked for a few minutes, but Bev had to go see to her wife, who is home from the hospital. The storm that hit England a couple of days ago, missed Bev and her family by several miles, but the rest of the U.K. really got clobbered. I hope all the rest of our friends in the U.K. came out of it okay.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
That storm
I live at 'ground centre' of that storm and, to be honest, it wasn't that bad. The press built it up as the worst thing since 1987 but I have seen far more serious storms here. I think it was a case of the story being built up so much in advance by the press that they felt it necessary to keep it going.
Storm
That storm was what I called a "Blow Hard". Heavy and torrential rain and Very high Winds.
Even Michael Fish, was comparing Sundays/Mondays storm to the ones in 2000 and later.
Most of the damage was caused by falling trees, even most of the power outages were caused by them taking down power lines.
At least we knew it was coming...
Here in the midlands...
A fair amount of rain, which raised river levels but didn't cause any widespread flooding, and not much in the way of wind damage. It looks as though most of the storm force winds hit the South / South East, so even though it's a relatively small corner of the UK, the combination of high population density and a London-centric media means they can legitimately harp on about extensive travel disruption, wind damage and homes with power supplies cut, while the rest of the country looks on and wonders "What storm?!"
According to the list of damage caused on Wikipedia's account of the storm, it appears as though the opposite side of the Channel bore the brunt, with the Netherlands (est €95m) and Denmark faring the worst.
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Lots of very localised damage
I lost about 10 trees on my bit of woodland on the South Downs. Still, I'll have enough logs for a few years once I get busy with the chainsaw and the track getting to the site becomes less than a muddy swamp. I dont have a 4WD Vehicle so there is no way I can haul them out of there at the moment. Anyone got a cheap Land Rover for sale?
Agreed it wasn't as bad as the '87 storm but a lot more tree maintenance is done these days.
After a pretty dry spring/summer the past few weeks have been very wet indeed. My local Met Centre says we are close to 20% above average rainfall for the year.
Maybe the guys at Top Gear
might have a used one you could hire. Heheee.
Cathy
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Top Gear
They might have a used 4x4 buried someplace that is available. What you don't ever want to get from them is what those silly Brits call a Caravan (Camper for us more sophisticated Colonials). I especially would not want that hybrid Blimp/Caravan that they had for one show :)
No massive storm for me.
Just consistently bad weather in recent weeks, which has made my phone/Internet line unreliable. It's thanks to smartphones and 3G that I'm still here. = )