Storm stories

[ladyofastolat]

The winds in the Solent are force 12 on the Beaufort scale – hurricane force, or so a sailing friend told me. All ferries are cancelled, which has the pleasant side-effect of cancelling a meeting I was due to go to, since the people leading it live on the Mainland. Not that I could have got to it anyway, since the roads are blocked by trees.

The tall conifers just outside my window are bending alarmingly. We all had a fierce debate last Thursday on what I should do when they start to fall - hide under my desk, or run for the stairs. This week, a different set of people are in the office, and opinions are still raging fiercely. I still adhere to my "cower gibbering under the desk and hope" approach.

How are other parts of the country faring in this gurt big wind?

EDIT (1 p.m.) It's getting worse. I just popped out, and it was seriously hard to walk to the car, and almost impossible to open the car door. Many roads are closed, some villages are cut off, and people are being told to avoid any roads that go up hills. I've been working downstairs most of the morning, nicely away from the row of swaying trees. It feels safer.

EDIT 2: But - woo-hoo! - our hosepipe ban has just been lifted!

Comments

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

LOL! Probably true, although I remember visiting ladyofasolat one year when there were gale force winds, and being surprised that people were out driving in it. Here they tell us to stay off the roads when winds exceed 40 mph.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Well, since ten people died in the wind yesterday, maybe we should take these things rather more seriously.

It's different when it snows, though. I was very amused the first time I saw snow on the Isle of Wight. We had about half an inch of the stuff, and the entire place closed down - schools closed, shops closed, etc.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

My school (before my time) apparently used to take a cavalier attitude to snow, and consider it unBritish to panic and go home.

Until that legendary time (about 2 years before I got there I think) when the snow came down and they ignored it - and all the pupils and teachers were snowed in together for several days, and had to get emergency rations delivered by helicopter.

I imagine this is a teacher's idea of hell. After that, it was one flake and onto the busses!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

We have a limited version of that in my office.

We are on top of a large multi-storey car park, and staff have to park on the top floor of it. And the exit ramp is a spiral that isn't under cover, so it gets very slippery, very quickly.

A couple of years ago, several people took over an hour to get out of the car park, and longer than that to get home; including the boss. Now, she is very quick to call a halt to the proceedings at the first sign of snow!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Teachers' hell, indeed! But it would make a great setting for a children's book - all the jolly mischief that the children get up to when trapped at school.

I was in a school last year when a few flakes of snow fell. The children were hyper, but the teachers were even worse. "OOoh! Oooh! We might be able to go home early!" they were exclaiming, leaping around the staffroom in hopeful glee.

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

Oh that's terrible! I'm sorry to hear that. High winds can be so dangerous. Even emergency medical personnel and police won't go out in it when the winds get too strong.

We had about half an inch of the stuff, and the entire place closed down

Yep, it was like that in Atlanta, too. I remember the first winter I was there, they got about an inch of snow and the city was just paralyzed. They didn't know what to do. I was both amused and appalled.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I gather that LA is suffering from an inch of snow at the moment.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Where my parents live there are vats of grit at the sides of the road, and the gritters get out there as soon as cold weather or snow is forecast. I don't think they've even heard of grit down here. It's only a hundred miles away, or so, but the contrast is very noticeable, and rather disturbing.