Memories of the Great Storm

25 years ago tonight, the Great Storm of 1987 swept across southern Britain.

It was one of those once in a lifetime events, when everyone can recall where they were and what they were doing at the time.

I remember lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, listening to the wind howling around our little terraced house in Ipswich, and hearing the sound of roof tiles from the house opposite crashing into the road.

The cycle ride to work that morning was an 'experience' to say the least. As I set off from home at about 7-30 in storm force winds, I had to watch out for flying dustbin lids, boards, tree branches and so on.
The one thing in my favour was the fact that for most of my 2 mile journey, I had a tail wind so I literally sailed along, propelled by the wind, hardly having to pedal at all for the whole journey. I don't think it was quite so easy for the cyclist I met coming in the other direction, head bowed as he struggled to make any progress in the teeth of the gale! "It's all right for you mate" was his passing comment as I hurtled by.

I worked at the time as a school groundsman around the Ipswich area. That day and the following days were spent clearing fallen trees and branches which littered the playgrounds and playing fields. This was all done using bow saws and axes, as we had no chain saws available.

At home, we were without electricity for about 5 or 6 days following the storm, but life carried on. People mucked in together, made sure neighbours and relatives were ok and just got on with it.

What are your memories of that night and the aftermath in the following days?

 

My OH and I were staying in Hong Kong with our Nepalese friends, Naresh and Iswari at that time. "Jenny " said Iswari "the BBC World News says that a man was killed by a chimney that fell into the Queens Hotel in Hastings. You have had hurricane I think?".
Also, a "boy ashore" (retired fisherman) was hit by a piece of debris and killed on the beach.
Jenny

 

I got woken up by tree branches hitting the upstairs bedroom window, which was odd as there wasn't a tree outside the bedroom. Opened the window, it nearly flew off in the wind.

Next morning I looked across the valley & it looked like the bomb had dropped, trees uprooted everywhere, a lot of them thru houses.

You couldn't see the tarmac on the roads, it was all covered in debris.

Got the bow saw out & started helping with the clear up, everyone did.

Some time later a big wrecking truck came down the street, the only thing big enough to get thru. My Punk mate (also called Trunky) was hanging out the passenger side, shouting "Oi Zig, great ain't it, Anarchy's broken out"

 

I was awake most of the night listening to roof tiles moving and crashing to the ground, my greenhouse was badly damaged by some of them.

At first light I went out and can remember seeing lightning flashes all around and a loud sound of the wind, not heard the same noise since.

The lightning was of course not lightning, but downed power cables arcing in the distance.

The salt from the sea 30 miles away burned any leaves still remaining on the trees left standing.

 

I was an overhead linesman at the time, and that night was my standby night.

We worked through the day of the storm on a power shut down, and started repairing odd faults from approx 4.00pm. Later in the evening, I have no idea what time, I crashed the van Whilst trying to miss a falling tree, and spent the night in the over turned van. My family didn't know where I was, or what had happened to us.
I didn't get home for three days. and when I did, I was there for approx 2hrs before getting called out again. The damage to my own house by falling trees had to wait, but thankfully kind neighbours had dealt with it for me, by the time that I did next get home.

I earned good money with stacks of endless overtime, tempers were fraid and several around us lost their lives.

My one memory was listening to the UK central unit, and the poor guy sitting in the office. He could see the whole thing unfolding before his eyes and watched as place after went off power and was relaying it to us and warning us that we were about to get hit. He was getting more and more frightened and none of us had a clue.
We just tried to put lines up, as the flashed to the ground around us.

The other thing that I remember is that when it became light, all around us were massive great big beech trees just laying on the ground. I'm sure that had I not crashed, I would probably be dead.

I would be lying if I was to say that I wasn't affected by that night, and on several occasions since, I have stayed at home rather than go to work on a windy day. In truth I guess that any strong wind now frightens me.

 

I was living in Colchester, Essex at the time. As the wind got stronger the pitch changed and it became a very deep, low moan. We roused our young family from bed and went downstairs. Our house and our neighbours had very tall chimney stacks and we feared those coming through the roof. With the electricity off we sat with candles burning and radio on for reports, covered with blankets as the heating was out too.

When daylight came we discovered that the wind had blown down our road, felling trees as it went and blocking everyone's drives, overhead lines had gone too. Our neighbour had lost his stack, but amazingly the only damage we had was the loss of two ridge tiles from the roof. Because of the amount of damage around Colchester, getting to work was impossible. Our neighbours set to with chainsaws and we rallied round making sure everyone was okay. We had no electricity for five days. Once we could venture out it was heartbreaking to see just how many trees were lost for miles around, let alone the damage to property. We were thankful it hadn't blown across the road because the mature fallen trees in the area would have done a lot more damage.

Some years back, maybe six or seven we had a similar experience here on the island after a force 9/10 , although the damage wasn't as bad, once again many trees were lost.

Like Eddie says it's something that stays with you and like him I fear gale force winds.

So glad you're with us Eddie, the accident must have been terrifying.

 

Blimey Eddie, thats a heck of a thing to go through.

I'm getting worried now as the winds have really got up here, and like that night 25 years ago, the leaves are still on the trees.

 

I was 1 at the time so don't remember it, but I am very glad that none of you have called it a Hurricane.. it's the first time I've been in a thread on this subject where no one has said the word Hurricane.

 

We don't have foreign things like that in Blighty

We just have Great Storms. Like the Great Storm of 1824.

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/chestorm.htm

Forth pic down on that link is where Willow & I discovered a Woman's skeleton.

 

The next day a friend of mine loaded his chainsaws onto his flatbed truck fitted with a with hiab and I didn't see him again for a few weeks. He made a small fortune from clearing fallen trees, especially with people paying to have have trees removed that could be immediately sold to lumber yards.