Im getting worried, he hasent been on yet
I sure hope that he is ok and that it was only the supposed power failure.

Not yet Dave. I have telephoned and left a message, also e-mailed. I only wish I had more telephone numbers so that I could contact people that we get concerned about.

mikeh was also in the storm area, he has gone quiet too,
let us hope it is just a power out.

lol::cool:

If you enter the two words "France storm" in Google you will be presented with a large number of news reports.

The average of those suggest that the Bordeaux Region of France where Petermac resides has been severley affected with up to a million homes still without power, many transport routes cut, massive building damage and a small number of fatalities.  Parts of France have been declared disaster zones.

Bob's area of Spain has not escaped either with fatalities reported there also.

We can only wait with hope and our fingers crossed.

That must be one strong storm. It has tunred over trucks and boats. Its blown down huge trees, and lightposts.

Pictures of the damage

Edit: Theres also new reports saying the it will take days even weeks to fix the electircty, Water has also been cut of in some areas.

This is one bad storm and i hope they are all ok.

The 1987 storm in the UK brought down so many trees that it took a week to restore power to some areas and even longer to a few around Ide Hill in Kent.

Without electricity water supplies can eventually fail even if the supply network is undamaged.  Purification plants cannot run and drinking water regulations mean that "impure" water cannot be sent through the mains.

175km/h winds are equivelant to an Australian Category 3 Severe Tropical Cyclone with very destructive winds.
Nasty stuff that you need to be prepared for. Water, food, emergency medical supplies, gas bottle cooking facilities, battery radio and torches.
Being overly intoxicated isn't good either, if you don't come through a blow like that unscathed there will be work to do, including relocating yourself and family if an evacuation is necessary.
In the Cyclone alley of the North West of Western Australia, those less enlightened have "Cyclone Parties" and the queues outside the liquor stores before the "red alert" is sounded, can be longer than those in the supermarkets.
Makes it hard on the emergency services when the people you are trying to help are too p****d to help themselves.

Not that I'm saying Petermac would over indulge, a sensible, moderate bloke like him would go carefully and slowly through the reserves… goodness knows how long they will have to last!

Hoping those in the line are safe and continue to be so.

Got in from shopping today and Petermac had left me a message on the phone. He and his family are all ok. Another sigh of relief.

Well' that was some weekend !!!!

Hi Guys - :hi I'm back in the land of the modern communications and I'm very touched by  your concern for my safety - especially you Bob who even dug up my phone number and rang on Sunday, I think it was. :thumbs

It really was some storm.  We woke up at 5am to the howling wind.  By 8am we had neither electricity nor telephone and that's the way it stayed until yesterday late afternoon when the electric came back.  Even my mobile phone wouldn't work - apparently some damage to a mast.

The telephone, and therefore internet, came back on line at around noon today.  I take my hat off to those poor linesmen who have worked in apalling conditions and throughout the night since Sunday - Saturday it was far too dangerous - and have got at least our little area reconnected although it may be only temporary judging from the damage to poles and lines etc.

The coast and further south got it worse than we did so it must have been terrible there.  We've got trees down everywhere, telephone poles literally snapped off and even pylons uprooted with many, many lines broken by fallen trees.

This time, the storm seemed to go either side of the Pyrenees and Spain got a hammering too I understand with several fatalities.  There have, tragically, been at least 14 killed in France.

The whole area around us had no electricity or telephones so I couldn't even "borrow" a phone locally.  Also, some quite severe flash flooding although we escaped the worst of the rain here.  Just 15 miles away, a small town was headlines in the local rag on Monday having been totally submerged.  Gradually, we started to hear that this village then that had electricity but still no phone.  This morning we heard that "so and so" was back on the phone !!  All very exciting stuff.  I suppose a bit like coming out of an aneasthetic bit by bit.  The other problem was that, because there was no electricity, the pumps that pump the water up to the water towers didn't work so water was also rationed.  Fortunately, we didn't actually run out but we don't go out in public !!!! :roll::roll::roll::roll:   Our next village was without water for 2 days but it came back on this morning thanks to a generator.

We have a small generator ourselves and used it to keep the freezer under control but otherwise, it was candles and cooking on the woodburner although we do have a calor gas hob but the "normal" kitchen gadgets just gathered dust.

Anyway Guys, as I said, many thanks for the concern.  I'll naturally bore you all with a few photos when I get them downloaded.

I think that the response is:  Phew :exclam:exclam

Very glad that all is slowly returning to normal. 

[user=5]rector[/user] wrote:

I think that the response is:  Phew :exclam:exclam

Very glad that all is slowly returning to normal. 

That's exactly the response I used on Sunday morning Tim !!

As I said, I've been genuinely moved by the concern from you all (as indeed, has Liz). Many thanks for your thoughts. ;-)

we are just glad to have you back on line and all ok so you can bore us all you
want (as usual )


:pedal:cool:

[user=15]owen69[/user] wrote:

we are just glad to have you back on line and all ok so you can bore us all you
want (as usual )


:pedal:cool:

:roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll:

I'll try Owen !!!

Incidentally, I wonder if Mikeyh has similar problems.  He lives a couple of hours north of here so I preume missed the worst of it.

Welcome back to the world of technology, good buddy :exclam Glad to see that there was no lasting damage to your good selves, everything else is fixable. best wishes to you and to Liz, for a speedy return to normality. thumbs:thumbs

Glad you are OK and I hope that things can get back to some sort of normality soon. ;-) 

Good to know you are all ok Peter:thumbs

Glad to hear you are safe and sound PM… well safe at least…  :roll: 

and always interested to see the results of storm damage, useful training aids for the newbies joining my unit.

Hope Mikey is OK too.

As promised (or threatened :roll:), some photos of the storm damage.

This first one is the reason we couldn't connect to the internet - loads of poles ended up like this one:



This was taken at our neighbour's house.  A tin garden storage shed was opened up like a tin and piled up against his workshop wall. This shot was taken on Saturday early evening when the wind was subsiding but still strong enough to hold the shed against the wall.   Fortunately, we live 500yds downhill from him so were sheltered from the worst of it by the lie of the land. Even so, we lost 4 trees although nothing as dramatic as these.



This was a  strawberry farm just 2 miles from us.  Acres of poly-tunnel just flattened leaving the young plants exposed to the elements.



Our neighbour's house again - his eucalyptus trees flattened.  These trees were in the gap between the workshop and house seen in photo 2 above - just to the left of the flattened garden store.  A foot to the left, and it would have fallen on the house.  Fortunately, all he lost was some guttering and a few tiles from the eaves.



Another house less than a mile from us which was exposed to the full force of the wind.  Two beautiful huge pine trees just toppled over.  At the front (other side) of this house, is a "classic" driveway lined with cedars - fortunately, they were sheltered from the wind by the house and survived, only losing several branches.



The houses shown above are looked after by me as their owners live out of France.  As you can see, I've got a fair bit of work to do over the next few weeks !!!!

:shock::shock::shock::shock::shock:

That last house looks impressive Peter, or what I can see of it through the roots anyway.

Looks like you will have no shortage of fire wood for a while!