20 years ago

My Cutlass 27 parked in Ocean Village. Large and fully inflated dinghy that was previously secured to the foredeck was found wedged between the mast stays (undamaged - still attached) but had to deflate it to get it out!
 
I was sailing my 24ft woodie - in southern Spain at the time. Didn't know anything about it until I flew home two days later and saw a mile-wide swathe of flattened trees from IOW to Kent as we came in to Gatwick!
 
There was a nice account in Heavy Weather Sailing - not sure if it's still in the latest edition - of a Contessa 32 (well it would be, wouldn't it?) that was out sailing on that day. Sailed down the coast, their main concern seemed to be to make it to an appointment with their Yachtmaster examiner who was supposed to be examining them next day. When they got to Portsmouth, it turned out the examiner couldn't make it 'cos of the devastation on land...
 
[ QUOTE ]
via the Needles Channel..

[/ QUOTE ]
...hope they got wind with tide...
 
Halfway through building Port Solent Lock. We had a system of wells into the chalk with pumps which had to be kept running 24 hours a day or the excavation would collapse. We had a man living in a caravan on site to look after the pumps. When the power went off all the alarms woke him up and he heroically got out of bed, started the generator and got the pumps going again. Then when he turned round he found his caravan had blown away!
Lots of yachts driven ashore in front of the marina.
 
I had been to the Roof Gardens in Kensington that evening a drove home at 2am. Even in the centre of London I was being blown all over the road. By the time I arrived home I got the car safely on the drive only to see a shed roll down the street like a bit of tumble weed.

the next morning I got up jumped into the car and headed for the station (I was a commuter then and a stockbroker) but couldn't get to the station all roads from my house were blocked, undeterred I turned around got my bicycle out of the garage and cycled the three miles to the station only to find all the trains cancelled!

I had no idea of the devastation until I called the office with the line "You are not going to believe this but I can't get to work" Needless to say it caused a certain amount of mirth in the office. I took the day off and photographed everything.
 
Morning meeting in Haymarket the day after the night before. I was the only one of the attendees to make it because my journey there was entirely underground (apart from a five minute walk to the station). When I came out of Piccadilly Circus tube station there was a smell of raw wood from the damage to trees even in the centre of town.
 
loads of memories (was and still am) working as a property loss adjuster and so incredibly busy for the next months after the storm and some amazing sights - in those days photos were with film and always regretted that I didn't hang onto the negatives and copy prints of so many of the incidents I visited - at a personal level - our Hunter Delta 25 lift keel sand on it's mooring on the River Orwell and was recovered by divers a few days later - no structural damage to boat or rig, outboard was restored at very very modest cost by local firm but cost of refitting all electrics and all upholstery and linings was equal to insured value - insurers gave us option to have her repaired or take total loss and we took the money - member of our then club - Orwell Yacht Club bought the salvage from the insurers and refitted her himself and last time we saw her you wouldn't know anything had ever happened to her, hard to believe that is was 20 years ago
 
Re: How far south? nm

Just east of Gatwick, slept through it all, woke to find an 80' tree had landed on my van, bending it like a banana. It was a Datsun, so it still started and drove, but the floor pan between the wheels was only an inch off the ground.
At the time I was renovating our house, and had removed the front wall completely, with the roof on acrow props, and poly sheet to keep out the weather. The wind direction must have been right for us though, otherwise I think the roof would have been blown clean off.
 
My wife and I were sleeping aboard our Nic 36 at Shamrock Quay. We were woken by the noise! The bow was nodding into the pontoon. It was a devil of a job to haul he astern a couple of feet. Scenes of chaos everywhere. Impossible to stand so had to crawl. The surface of the river looked like it had 6 inches of snow on it. A night I'll never forget. Got my leg over too!!!
 
No. I was in Portugul oblivious to it all gazing into the future SWIMBO's eyes - maybe there was a hurricane ... I've no idea.
 
We completely slept through it - but when I was making the morning coffee in our (then rented) house I was puzzled to see a London Transport bus shelter upside down in the back garden. Muttering 'bloody vandals', it then struck me that there was no traffic at all on the normally busy front road - a huge London Plane having managed to flatten several double parked cars at the same time.

Sorry I missed it, really.
 
The most frightening experience of my life. The big gust picked up the roof of our garage and porch, smashed it against the end of the house, spun it round until it hit the back of the house and then it crashed down on top of our fence and several Wayfarers in the dinghy pound behind our house. Amazingly the dinghies were relatively unscathed which is more than could be said for our house. The clean-up and rebuilding took six months.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Mostly airborne on a Tigawave at Monkey hill, work was canceled as BT research had most of their windows missing up at Martlesham Heath!

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah! That brings back memories.... 'cept it was a Mistral (think Diamond Head at that time, but might have been later!)
 
sitting in San Francisco airport waiting for very delayed BA flight - series 1 747, turned round quickly but long flight back to be woken by pilot overflying the devastated south.
 
I had just qualified and was sleeping in my girlfriends' bed as she was on night duty. Old fashioned nursing accomodation, built like a brick 5h1t house, at about 2.30 am got up to stuff a wedge of card in the sash window which was rattling like a couple of skeletons having a shag on a corugated roof and went back to sleep. Went into work (a 90 second walk) and found the place almost deserted. "Where is everyone?" "Jeez, boy, where you been, dincha hear about the hurricane?" Oh well! If I'd known, I'd have got up to watch!
 
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