Storm coming

GreyQueen

Been raining heavily here since about 7 am, keeps getting heavier and heavier every few minutes.

Good day to stay indoors and catch up with the chores (and the preps).

Meritaten, a pal and I went thru an autumn half-term weekend storm in a static caravan on a site in Cornwall. It was lairy. I was in a "bedroom" with bunks and used the spare mattresses to barricade the window; the idea being if she rolled I'd have a softer landing that way.

Pal assured me that the chains would hold 'er (they did) but it was a hairy night with flying objects (chiefly plastic dustbins) impacting on the van. When we gingerly stuck our head out of doors the next morning we had ascquired several additonal dustbins, wedged under the edge of the caravan and the site was a mess with stuff everywhere.

One thing I remember from the Outer Hebrides is that they have a special kind of steel wotsit for clamping the wheelie bins in place, and where our see outdoor gas tanks, they're securely anchored down.

Wyre

Got home about 11pm from Mother's, it was quite windy and there were a lot of small branches in the road already. It's bright sunshine here now but I can see the tree in the neighbour's garden blowing about.

Hubby drives HGV's and is out at work. I have told him to listen to the radio and pay attention to any warnings that say high sided vehicles should be off the road. Stuff what the depot says, I want him back in one piece thanks! The Dartford crossing is bound to be closed at some point so I hope he makes back before that happens else it's a long way round to get home. Fortunately it is his rota day off tomorrow and I can have my fingers crossed that he misses the worst of it all.

In other news, I was in the local outlet centre and passing the Mountain W@rehouse discount store. Everything was 20% off the already marked discounted price, so I picked up a headlamp (the pound shop was out when I had been in there earlier) and the camping stove I have been after for a while.

Keep safe folks.

Goldiegirl

It rained earlier, but it's sunny now, so I'm going to get my washing out ASAP.

Reading about people's experiences of the October 87 storm, reminded me of my friends's story.

The day before the storm, she hadn't seen any TV, so she had no idea it was going to be windy.

The strong winds woke her and her husband up at around 3am. They live on quite high ground, and when they looked out the window, they could see all the lights going out across town, until everything was dark.

The only conclusion they could come to was that a nuclear bomb had gone off and what they were experiencing was the nuclear wind from the force of the blast!

Their battery operated radio was in the shed and they couldn't go and get it, as they were afraid of nuclear fall-out. So they couldn't get any information.

They spent the rest of the night, sealing up all the doors and windows, so that none of the fallout could get into the house.

It was only when the winds dropped in the morning, and they heard the milk float go by, that they realised they weren't under nuclear attack!

mardatha

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: O brilliant! magic!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

goldiegirl, that must have been a scary situation for your friends...There are lots of people who don't watch or listen to the news etc, due to not wanting to listen to the bad news about war, famine, killings etc...

custardy

Cheer up,maybe it will take out the False Widow spiders

SailorSam

Looking out of the window here it's quite sunny; there's no rain, and the trees aren't moving. So i'd just like to tell that woman who has phoned The Bbc to say she'd heard we were going to have a hurricane, don't worry it's going to be a nice day.

davenport151

Goldiegirl wrote: »

It was only when the winds dropped in the morning, and they heard the milk float go by, that they realised they weren't under nuclear attack!

After my milk was delivered after that bad snow a few years ago and the country was all but paralyzed ( mid East Anglia -so we usually escape the worst of snow). I began to think that even come armageddon my milk would still be sitting on the doorstep for me to make my morning cuppa!

Wyre

Custardy and SailorSam, it may well be nowhere near as bad as the tabloids want us to believe, but for Hubby, for instance, it doesn't take much of a increase in gusts before driving becomes 'interesting'. Especially as his employer loves sending class 1's down tiny country lanes to stores in the middle of nowhere - to all the lorry drivers out there, live the dream!

Pooky

We had a lot of rain last night, parts of the local town are underwater and the trees are still nearly bending double in the wind here at the moment....it's still so muggy though!

My parents are in a "park home" and hate it when it's windy so I'm hoping they'll be able to ride it out tonight, I've suggested they come to us but they want to stay where they are. Our village got caught majorly in the 87 storm and the static vans on the cliffs ended up in the field behind, lots of houses lost their roofs too.

Current wind direction prediction shows it will hit the back of my house so I'm very concerned about my solar panels on the roof! our house backs on to a long run of other peoples garden so it's a real wind tunnel at the best of times.

We're all battened down outside, got enough food/water etc and plenty of candles/firewood if we're without power for a while (likely with our overhead cables) and this mornings job is to pack a couple of rucksacks for us all with a change of clothes, purses/wallets, a pc backup drive and important documents. That way if we do need to get out in the middle of the night I feel we're covered. DDs have been told to have trainers at the side of the bed along with their coats and torches, don't want to be faffing about in slippers.