Bob Dylan’s answers may have been Blowin’ in the Wind, Demis Roussos once sang about My Friend the Wind, but for us in this particular part of Tassie we experienced Van Morrison’s Full Force Gale. With 110kph winds and gusts up to 170kph, 18 metre waves on the west coast, 12,000 homes lost power, damage across the State was extensive and the clean up and reconstruction jobs will not only have a pretty big dollar value but will take quite a while to restore back to normal.
I take my hat off to the Hydro for the construction of the houses here in Poatina sixty years ago. There was very little structural damage to most, just a few broken windows from flying debris, some guttering ripped off, fences blown over, but around our little village there’s a lot more to clean up.
The Panorama Room in our motel took on a whole new meaning when the wind literally blew the window in, then proceeded to take the ceiling and roof with it, putting the roof of one whole wing of the motel at risk of simply peeling back like the lid of a sardine tin. The piece of roof which did get airborne landed in the front yard across the road and even though it smashed the front windows, was only prevented from ending up in the lounge room by tall shrubs which now don’t exist.
Full marks to the SES who came out to assist, tying down as many things as possible so the rest of the roof was stable, but I don’t think we’ll be having any guests up that end of the motel for quite some time.
With the power out for 28 hours I was more than thankful for my cosy fire, and a few of us enjoyed a candlelit dinner of spuds cooked in the fire while we kept warm and felt relatively safe. Stepping outside was downright dangerous, and I was surprised to find I was actually able to sleep as the roar of the wind was something akin to a jet engine parked outside, and when I woke up at midnight to a huge bang I feared the chimney might have fallen victim.
Went investigating with my little candle to find the front door had blown open and the Antarctic gale was now freezing up the house, got up a couple more times to batten down some other things banging around, but woke on Friday morning with a thankful heart that what started on Wednesday afternoon seemed to have finally blown itself off towards New Zealand. Hope they don’t cop it as bad as us.
Surveying the damage in my own yard I lost two sections of fence, one taken out by a wattle tree, as well as five other Australian natives, all totally ripped out of the ground, some of which have been there for nearly fifteen years. We get these gales every few months but this one well and truly took the cake.
How the Aurora and SES workers have the courage to go out in the face of such dangerous conditions to help people they don’t know from a bar of soap I’ll never know. I must admit to praying for them and their safety more than once through the whole ordeal, and have the highest regard for what they probably see as just doing their job. Good on you guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment