Preparedness for when

mardatha

Western Isles have had 157 lightning strikes in one hour, and the winds to hit Orkney are a Cat 1 hurricane. We've to get 48 hours of wind and rain and snow here. Send good vibes for my roof lol

Frugalsod

mardatha wrote: »

Western Isles have had 157 lightning strikes in one hour, and the winds to hit Orkney are a Cat 1 hurricane. We've to get 48 hours of wind and rain and snow here. Send good vibes for my roof lol

Not just your rood but everyones roof. :T Good luck and I hope your roof avoids 157 lightning strikes.

thriftwizard

Oh my goodness - fingers crossed especially for your roof, Mardatha, and thinking of you all up there...

[Deleted User]

Local News for Southampton is reporting cases of H3N2 which when I looked it up is Swine Flu!!! Not apparently included as part of this years Flu Jab so no protection in the community. Don't we live in interesting times???

mardatha

I just posted this in the wrong thread lol but will copy it here, it's from a Scots weather forum.

First post:
Hi Desperately need to know whether the worst has hit the isle of Lewis as mum needs to know whether to make a run from her house as her windows have blown out n the roof may go as well?

Then:
Mum has been forced to make a run for it as the roof is gonna go with 3 of them stuck in the house she's calling 999 to help as she also has 2 dogs there.
Edited: she's been told to stay put by the police don't think even they can risk it either

mardatha

Thank you Frugalsod lol the roof stayed on!

GreyQueen

We do indeed, Mrs LW. And when you read reports of A & E depts in crisis, ambulances backed up outside hospitals unable to offload casualties, zero bed availabilities, tents being set up to treat patients outside and you think about a flu pandemic - we could not cope with a serious seasonal flu, never mind pandemic flu as things stand, never mind anything like Ebola.

Our hospital doesn't have enough beds at the best of times. It's a major teaching hospital, just was built too small for the population (they were told when it was planned but didn't listen, later admitted their error but it's still too small) and the population it's supposed to serve keeps getting larger.

Ach well, nowt I can do about that. Am off out for an airing on the cheap streets before the weather cuts up rougher, it's a bit windy but it doesn't take much for it to go whooo-whooo around the Towers.

ivyleaf

those of us who get regular flu jabs had one a few years ago which included the swine flu vaccine, so presumably we're protected. It was the only time we've been poorly after a flu jab!

GreyQueen

ivyleaf wrote: »

those of us who get regular flu jabs had one a few years ago which included the swine flu vaccine, so presumably we're protected. It was the only time we've been poorly after a flu jab!

Unfortunately for humanity, the influenza viruses are extremely fast mutators and previous years' innoculations won't protect against a new strain, nor will the 2014 innoculation protect against all possible permutations of the flu virus; they make a best-guess about which strains will predominate in which season, based on what is happening in the opposite hemishere, and make the innoculation against them.

Flu is a scary thing because of how easy it is to transmit and how rapidly it can mutate. New strains of flu can also incubate easily in pigs and pass to us, and there are a lot of piggies around.

Best not to fret too much, have provisions at home in case you need to self-quarantine, and be careful about handwashing and not touching fingers to eyes/ nose/ mouth, which makes transmission of viruses inc flu easy.

I've had flu about thrice in my life; once as a child under 10, once at the time of my 20th birthday and once about 15 years ago when I foolishly had the jab at the same time as a cold and I think it didn't 'take' and I subsequently got flu that winter. On all 3 occasions I was pretty ill and on the day of my 20th I couldn't even get out of bed due to the lymph glands at the tops of my legs being too swollen to allow me to move for about 8 hours. Freakin' scary when you live alone, let me tell you.

I started a pretty ghastly cold last Thursday, real horror with fever and all sorts, but it sure as hell wasn't the flu or I wouldn't have been functioning as well as I was.

pineapple

Afternoon all. Just dropping by to say Happy New Year and to say hope everyone is paying attention to what is happening in France right now.
If I was a betting person I would put money on more of this coming to the UK as well.