winter storm preparations

We slept through the storm of 1987 😄 Woke in the night briefly and noticed the power was off but went straight back to sleep. When we got up in the morning the power was back and we dressed and drove to the station to commute to work. We were very surprised to see trees down in the roads and no trains. It wasn't until we saw the news we knew what was going on 😄 Finally got to work two days later and nearly got killed in Long Acre by an advertising board that had worked loose and crashed to the ground.

I am in Cornwall and after a wet and blustery morning it is now peaceful with blue skies and sunshine. I expect it will be different tomorrow. Stay safe everyone.

Our builder recently installed a 'flood barrier' to the garage in our new build house for which we were very grateful.

I’m grateful we live in a second storey apartment! No garden, no fences, nothing to batten down. High winds scare me. The terrifying force of Nature unleashed.

You sound super organised though karmalady! Well done.

I remember the storms of 1987 affecting Hampshire where my in-laws lived but not us. We were in West Oxfordshire but storms came our way in 1990. I was at home, heavily pregnant and waiting to go into labour, when tiles started flying off my roof! I took my life in my hands and went outside to move my car off the drive and onto the field nearby to prevent it being hit by flying roof tiles. It was a pretty scary experience. I then went back indoors to watch further tiles embedding themselves in the lawn! In retrospect it was a rather foolish thing to do!

It’s the fierce unpredictability of high winds that frighten us all.

I always think of the late Gorden Kaye (who played René in ‘Allo ‘Allo) when these winds are forecast. He suffered serious head injuries when a piece of wood smashed through the windscreen of his car during a storm in 1990, according to reports at the time. I never forgot that. It was such a shock to read. The randomness of it all. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s what scares me. I shan’t be going out.

I was teaching in 1987 and the wind blew one of the classroom windows in. Luckily all the children were sitting on the carpet at the other end of the room. The whole school then went to sit in the hall which was the safest place.

karmalady

Right now, storm centre is tracking a bit further south and will hit the channel isles and Brittany hard. Keep fingers crossed we won`t know where it is heading until tomorrow morning

I hope it stays South, we have to make a journey tomorrow.

i am old enough to remember I think they were called linesmen, So these were council employees responsible for the drains and roads in their specific area. So they kept drains sorted and knew the problem areas and would be on the ball to alter and check them. No computer will know this information! Also years ago I lived between Nottingham and Derby and they wanted to build houses in what was the flood plain areas. We campaigned against it but they said their had been no flooding of the Trent etc for about 15 years and were allowed to build. About 2 years later there was a major flood and the water could not go onto the fields it used to go to. Houses in the area that had never been flooded before, and I remember a particular friend had just put their house up for sale and were in a small dip. The water came so high that we took a dinghy over the top of standard roses and were pasing food and drinks into the first floor windows!Result much more expensive damage of homes and surrounds and where were the builders? Oh disappeared and so all the houses then had major addition to insurance and all because they only wanted to look at a year or two. So what are we doing now? Building more and more , with very little common sense in looking at possible flooding , and not even building houses that were well set up to deal with flooding!

Devon schools now deciding to close tomorrow. I think, due to our location, we're probably going to be badly hit.

Devastated - we had a booking for lunch at Mark Hix Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis tomorrow -and common sense has made us decide to cancel it 😢😢😢

Buggerstions Maw so near yet not to be. But better safe than sorry. Sensible decision I think. I’m in the “don’t travel unless it’s absolutely necessary” brigade. But then, I am a wuss.

My boss was killed by a falling tree, he’s pulled over to let an ambulance pass him and a huge tree fell on his car. It wasn’t the 87 storm but maybe 92? One of the chance occurrences, had he not pulled over when he did etc. it was just horrible.

My father in law died during the great storm of ‘87. They lived in Haywards Heath which was badly hit and he watched a tree uprooting in the garden. He was so convinced it was going to smash through the French windows he panicked and had a heart attack. My poor mother in law was alone with him for ages until help could get through. He had died almost at once.

The phone lines were all down so she couldn’t get through to us until the next day and it took us nine hours to drive from Cambridgeshire to West Sussex. I’ll never forget all the fallen trees and electricity cables in tangled heaps that reminded me of bowls of spaghetti.

According to the weather map we’re right in Cieran’s path. My hatches are well and truly battened down !!

You are no wuss Urms. 💐

In 1987 we were still living onboard. At the time we were tied up against a concrete wharf. As it turned out we were fine, the tide never came in. 🙏

In 1987, big winds were forecast but to go along the channel and hit France, the storm then veered and came to land on uk and suddenly we had that hurricane. Fingers very much crossed that we don`t get similar again

Don`t worry too much if it seems as though you are in the centre of the storm, that area will be relatively quiet, it is outside the centre that gets badly hit, where the isobars are closely together

Pressure is now falling rapidly on my weather station. It is all interesting and frightening at the same time. Nature is so powerful, 6" of fast moving water can knock you over and 12" can lift a car

Our 'lovely' neighbour, recently swept lots of fallen leaves into the road drain outside his house!

pressure is still falling rapidly, now down to 957

The storm is not static, it moves, sit tight and best of luck to everyone

I have been close to the centre of the low for much of the night and early this morning, so it has been quiet without wind but winds will build soon as the low moves away

Callistemon Thank you for link. It tells me that our worset wind will be this afternoon, so I am planning my day to get everything done this morning.

It was karmalady's link, M0nica. I hope we will be ahead of it as we travel 🤞

suddenly dark and I have filled a flask ready in case of power cut

Right now I am thankful that I live in a large PB block of flats so that the worst any storm does to me is a bit of whistling around the windows! Back in 1990 the upper frontage of my house was very badly damaged when the wind whipped off the garage roof belonging to the neighbour opposite to me, ‘entering’ apparently, through a couple of unrepaired broken windows. It pretty much demolished my bedroom, damaging the roof and chimney too and sent rafters crashing through the ceiling into the lounge. Good job my then husband and I were out at work, our daughter was with her childminder and our dear old ‘home alone’ dog was very lucky! It was a terrible shock though, especially as I was four months pregnant with a difficult pregnancy at the time! Took ages to get it all sorted as there was quite a lot of structural damage. So now I’m thankful for my flat although I must say I enjoy LOOKING at a good storm through the safety (I hope!) of my windows.

My house is quite high up so is unlikely to Get flooded, winds, I don't know apart from it stood up to 1987 and is still standing, so hopefully we'll be OK?