It was 25 years ago tonight that a rather large storm hit the south of England. As a 9 year old at the time I recall the sounds of the house creaking in the wine, the noise of the wind itself and the smashing of the trees in Petworth Park...opposite where I lived. Our village was cut off for a couple of days, but we still had power. I don't know how he thought of it the day before, but my Dad was the secretary of the local railway club, who's power was provided by a generator. He 'borrowed' the generator the day before...and we were the only house in the village with light and heat!
Aside from that, the clear up brought the village together...funny how adversity does that...
Anyone else have memories/stories of that night a quarter of a century ago?
Oh god yes, I was posted at RAF Stornoway and the next day we had a recorded wind speed on the airfield of 125mph.
We were all confined to the accomodation block, which was a real shame as it housed the bar :D :D so we did what any good serviceman would do in such adversity.... We opened the bar :beers: :beers: and played snooker.
It was whilst doing this, that we noticed a BT Van passing the end of the airfield, it then just suddenly appeared to leap up and throw itself over the fence. So we rushed out to it, rescued the poor BT man (whom we all knew anyway) bought him back to the block and poured whisky down his neck, surprisingly he was most grateful, couldn't possibly think why :hmmm: :hmmm:
Regards
Neal.
Yep, I was one of the few people that slept right through it completely unaware! :D
Driving to work next morning, still a bit breezy like, kept seeing bits of tree and fence panels in the road and thought "blimey, must have been windy out last night ;D Then the newscaster on the radio said that police were advising people not to travel unless absolutely necessary, so I turned around and went home again ;)
Paul
PS: I've also slept through having two large booted coppers walk through my bedroom when my brother thought he saw an intruder in our back garden. And once I fell out of bed without waking up too, my mum said she heard a "THUD" in the night. I don't so much got to sleep at night, more die for 7 or 8 hours :D
Remember it well.
Was working for a local tool hire company and we all got called in to make sure every one of our 30 chainsaws were working properly and sorting out loads of spare chains.
I was with you on that night Sprintex. Well, not literally with you but a workmate and I were staying in a caravan on a farm near Silverstone where we were working at the time and we slept right through it. First we knew was all the trees which had come down in the field next door. Of course the fact that we slept through it had absolutely nothing to do with the ale which we had supped or those cigarettes which tasted a bit funny.
When I were a lad we lived on the 10th floor of a block of flats in Hong Kong, 135 Boundary Street, I remember it well. Anyway, a typhoon came through one night and we got the eye of it. Guess who slept through it and awoke to tropical fish swimming around the bed? Ok, no need to guess.
And finally there was the night of May 4th this year when I slept right through falling down the stairs breaking 5 ribs, attention from the paramedic and eventually woke up in the ambulance. I too go to bed to sleep. And walk.
Gah thank you for making me feel old :'(
i was 6 and in scotland cant say i noticed it :)
was do remember when i next visited my grandmas in reigate to find loads of the tree's fallen!
Yep, remember it well; "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't"
There wasn't a house in my road that wasn't damaged. I only lost some tiles but the one on the corner had the end gable completely blown out. Power was out and phone lines down. Couldn't drive to work as there were tress down at each end of the road and the A22 had dozens across it. One road in the town was still closed a year later as the loss of trees had made the side bank unsafe. SE England lost over ten million trees that night yet currently the amount of woodland in the UK is at its highest ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987)
H.
I remember the house losing some of the ridge tiles and me and my dad having to put up a new fence.....
Quote from: swisstony on October 16, 2012, 09:42:07 AM
I remember the house losing some of the ridge tiles and me and my dad having to put up a new fence.....
Would it not have been better to replace the ridge tiles? :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v665/ProfGTA/stupid_post_bear.jpg)
We came off relatively lightly in Watford. But I am another who slept through most of it. I vaguely recall being awake briefly in the small hours and thinking it sounded turbulent out there. But woke up next morning to the news of chaos. There were a lot of branches, fences etc down when I walked to Watford Jcn to go to work - and when I walked directly back as there were no trains!
So a day off, with one daughter off from school sick, and we started our search for a replacement car a day earlier than planned.
Our own fences remained upright, just, though one of the apple trees was at a funny angle and needed propping up. It died later the next year.
And I missed poor Michael Fish's famous forecast.
Slept through it. Alarm at 6.30. Noted power cut but got ready for work anyway.
Got into car to drive to work. Had I turned left the road was blocked by a tree but I turned right and drove to the A2. Crap radio in my Metro so I didn't turn it on until Dartford - I had noticed though that A2 was quiet and it was a bit windy. Assumed that Medway Bridge was closed because of the wind.
Turned on radio at Dartford and realised I was still in a power cut zone (no lights). Radio rabbiting on about some storm or other.
Thought it a bit stange the way that Luton bodied Transit was balanced on the barrier in the middle of the A2. Was also a little alarmed by the way I had to weave through the portacabin site huts that were scattered across the carriageway.
Only real travelling issue was when reaching the Old Kent Road I had to circumnavigate a tree which had also ripped up a watermain and flooded the road - not good in a Metro but waded through and kept going - must have been a bit windy in London too...
Got to expensive car park near work then walked down the road into work....
Got strange phone call from Boss asking me what I was doing there - "I work here".....
So that was my storm - Getting home was much worse...
Quote from: Calnefoxile on October 15, 2012, 11:05:27 PM
Oh god yes, I was posted at RAF Stornoway and the next day we had a recorded wind speed on the airfield of 125mph.
We were all confined to the accomodation block, which was a real shame as it housed the bar :D :D so we did what any good serviceman would do in such adversity.... We opened the bar :beers: :beers: and played snooker.
Neal.
Ah a quiet day on Stornoway then, could've been worse, they might have sent you to Saxa Vord!
Has a power cut during a sess in the bar at Bruggen, so we all went back to the block (everyone had a crate or two under their bunks back then) and we all got quietly smashed listening to one of the lads playing his trumpet. Wonder if he ever perfected that triple tonguing technique :confused1:
Living in Surrey at the time, just outside Guildford. Woke me up and I stood looking out of the window, watching dustbin lids flying like frisbees, trees bent double (without breaking), and also felt the house moving. As the house was one of those concrete framed council houses, I was looking forward to being re-homed in a brick one, but surprisingly, it survived!
Next day found the village isolated from the rest of the world, till the local farmers got busy with their chain saws. My aunt was cut off, with no leccy for 2 weeks. The leccy board had to be helped out by engineers from other parts of the country - great for leccy board van livery spotters (if any existed then - or now).
our club room got a free oak tree through it destroyed all the layouts only a lighting box survived
daz
Sorry to hear that :'(
I for one dont remember it at all .... I was only 3 months old at the time so I think I can be let off this one.... Although have been told it got a bit blowy that night :D
Certainly do remember it.
I was a telecomms engineer back then and the storm meant loads of OT repairing damaged lines.
My most vivid memory though is of a stretch of the A34 not far south of Milton IE/Didcot turning which looked like a mass grave for HGVs. The was a gap is the hillside where the wind kept howling through and simply knocking the wagons over. It took ages weaving round the "dead" and their scattered cargos.
Remember it well! Lived in Gillingham at the time and worked in Maidstone. We had no power in the morning had been up most of the night watching out of our back window, saw two of our fence panels blown out of their concrete posts and land on our lawn (we were able to just slot them back in as they had remained in tact"
Our small apple tree eas practically uprooted and was leaning at a 45 degree angle.
In Rochester my dad's greenhouse was caught by the wind landed in a neighbours garden 3 houses away!
Managed to get to work in Maidstone. Jackie who gave me a lift in had slept through it and didn't have a clue what was going on.
We went to park as usual in Maidstone East station's car park but because of the power cut the barrier wasn't working, I managed to lift it manually high enough for Jackie to drive the car in where we parked with about 7 other cars! (8.45am!)
We had no power in the bank where I worked in Maidstone and few windows so had gas lamps on the counter! I'm sure Health & Safety would have something to say about that today!
After a somewhat quiet day we returned to the car park to find that Jackie's car had been stolen! We managed to get a lift home from another work colleague and Jackie reported the theft to the police.
The following day the police phoned her to say her car had been found undamaged in Sevenoaks. It had been abandoned where a tree was blocking the road.
Being self employed with 1 child and another on the way I struggled the 20 miles to where I was wokking but stopped at the 1st working telephone box I spotted and phoned the wife to ban her from going out in th car.
2 hours the 20 miles took me only to find out that I was the only one who had made it :'( Boss arrived about 2.30 and early afternoon was spent in pub before staggering home about 4 PM.......I made the effort tho so I was paid for a full day :claphappy:
Still lived at home with the patents then in Eastbourne on the Sussex coast. Slept through the whole thing and the house survived intact. I was therefore a bit surprised when I tried to drive to work in Hailsham about 5 miles away and it took me over an hour and about 20 miles! I must have been keen in those days, now I wouldn't bother trying to get into work.
I worked for LLoyds at the time and there was no power all day but our manager, who couldn't get in from Eastbourne, made all those who did stay all day! Trouble was no power meant the safe couldn't open so customers couldn't draw out any money and we didn't want to take any as there was nowhere to put it ( IIRC I volunteered to take it home with me but this fell on deaf ears). It's amazing how 'stressed' people can get when they can't draw out any money and one genuinely couldn't see why we wouldn't get someone in to knock the safe wall down as 'it could be days before the powers back!'.
Gareth
Quote from: jonclox on October 17, 2012, 11:21:55 AM
Being self employed with 1 child and another on the way I struggled the 20 miles to where I was wokking but stopped at the 1st working telephone box I spotted and phoned the wife to ban her from going out in th car.
2 hours the 20 miles took me only to find out that I was the only one who had made it :'( Boss arrived about 2.30 and early afternoon was spent in pub before staggering home about 4 PM.......I made the effort tho so I was paid for a full day :claphappy:
:sorrysign: but hinking back on what I wrote..........
My wife and I were very much into CB radio at that time and I could well have called the on the rig and told her the situation and that it wasn`t safe to go out because of storm damage
Should we draw any conclusions based on the fact it's taken you 25 years to think of this ? :angel:
My mum remembers this all too well. I was only a week old at the time and still in hospital. The storm damaged the roof of St Mary's hospital and woke every baby on the ward apart from me :D. I slept through the whole thing! :sleep:. My mum was at the hospital at the time and spent the night helping the nurses get the babies back to sleep whilst I just laid there asleep :thumbsup:.
I remember it too. We lived in Canterbury at the time. We lost half our roof and spend a sleepless night downstairs on the sofa listening to the wind ripping more and more of roof away. At one point with the tiles coming off the roof I went to wake our neighbours to tell them to move their car. He had no idea what was going on and he looked at me like I was an idiot till three tiles smashed on the path behind me, about 2 feet from his car! I think it was a bit stupid going out. It was only when I was outside that I realized how hard it is to stay on your feet in 125mph winds. But I didn't get tiled, and the neighbour's car was safe too. It was a mess and most of Canterbury town centre was flooded with trees down everywhere. I had a photo of the Sainsbuy's car park looking like a lake. Our news was full of stories about stranded ferries and wrecked holiday caravan parks and all the casualties.
I thought that was bad till I experienced tornadoes over here.
I was attending a meeting at Swindon College.
That was interrupted when we all had to move our cars as bits of roof were flying off the top of the building.
My car was fine but many others were less lucky !
The drive home that late afternoon was interesting as I remember it !
Quote from: MikeDunn on October 18, 2012, 11:57:43 AM
Should we draw any conclusions based on the fact it's taken you 25 years to think of this ? :angel:
Um :-[...dementure flash back? :'(
Went to see "Les Mis" in Shaftesbury Ave, London that night, but can't remember name of theatre.
It was pouring of rain when we waited to go in around 7 in the evening but when we came out (probably) around 10 it was dead calm. Got home to Barking just before midnight and it was disturbingly calm and quite.
Woken in early hours by tin cans (dustbins lids?) being blown down road, no power so scrambled for torch, found battery radio, used camping stove to make tea for wife & daughter (typically English response).
When dawn broke found parts of someones fence/shed in garden, never found out who's. Trees were blown down on all exit roads from estate so couldn't drive out, eventually made it to local BR & LT station on foot but no trains into London so couldn't get into work then. Tried later on I think the Liverpool Street line and got to work around 2pm so got paid.
Ray
I lived in Harrow at the time. Only event of note was that the pilot light on my gas boiler went out and it wasa right PITA to get going again!