Storm, October 1987

[Wowbagger]

A little bit later than I intended, given the elapsed time since Hurricane Bawbag, but here are a few photos I took the day after the storm of October 1987. These are all in Southend and Westcliff.



Act of God: the stone cross has been blown from the apex of the roof of a babtist church.



Sea front







Three-quarters of someone's roof has been dumped in the front garden.

[rogerzilla]

Proof, if it were required, that Essex had a lot of XR3is and other Escorts 

I was in Birmingham, at university.  I walked up to Tesco at Five Ways during the peak of the storm.  It was very mild there; my trouser legs were flapping a lot (the tall office buildings always create high winds around their base) but that was it.  No damage anywhere.

[Kim]

I slept through the whole thing.

[Wowbagger]

There was one block of flats on the sea front which had had its bricks peeled back and blown out of the wall at 3rd floor level. I thought I had a photo of that but couldn't find it. There was one family whose entire house was demolished around them as they slept and, incredibly, they walked away with only minor injuries.

[bobb]

Proof, if it were required, that Essex had a lot of XR3is and other Escorts 

That was the first thing I thought!

I walked to school the following morning climbing over fallen trees and stuff. I got about half way when a bunch of kids coming the other way said "Don't bother - the school hasn't got a roof anymore!"

So I went home 

[numbnuts]

I stayed the night with my next door neighbour as she was so frightened, it was all very cosy until her husband got back......

[Jurek]

I have a book of photographs of the aftermath.
Taken by a journalist who, the day after the storm, chartered a light aircraft and flew over the SE, snapping.

For my part, on the night, I awoke at 3am (that was normal - my partner and I ran a catering business at the time and that's when we got up) wondering why I couldn't see the digital alarm (No electricity).
I got up and drove from our home in Harrow to the baker who supplied us with our bread in Kingsbury.
It was like driving through a war zone. I've never before, or since seen so much debris on the street. Bits of tree, roof, car - you name it - it was all over the place.

All 27 (or however many it was) loaves had been baked before the power went off - but there was no power for the slicer - I took the loaves and rolls with me regardless.

I returned home to start preparing the day's wares. (Our home was equipped with power for back-up lighting)
We had the radio on. There was 'nothing' there.
At 5am the radio crackled into life with the announcement "This is diesel powered Radio One, I am sitting here by the light of one anglepoise lamp......"

That day we delivered to probably one third of our usual customers - the rest had simply not made it in to work - just as well as we weren't able to produce our normal volume of food on account of the loss of power.

Two blocks of flats adjacent to where we lived lost their roofs that night and were subsequently demolished

[hellymedic]

The Succah that my brother had constructed for Succot (Tabernacles) remained unscathed...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkah

[AndyK]

I drove to work in Dagenham the morning after. Much of it was like a war zone. Trucks on their sides, trees down, houses stripped of roofing. There wasn't much traffic as I recall and only about a third of the shift made it in.

[Woofage]

I slept through the whole thing.

Me too, even though the East of England was hard hit.

[Psychler]

I drove to work in Dagenham the morning after. Much of it was like a war zone.

Quite normal for Dagenham then!

 

[drossall]

Was there another major storm a year or two later?

I'll always remember walking past a local Baptist church, which had trees in its grounds. They were pretty much like the ones in your photos. My very small son studied the destruction, and said the immortal words:

"Daddy fix it".

[Wowbagger]

I remember one on Burns Night, probably around 1990, but I'm not sure. Our team decided to have a Burns Lunch, in the refectory on the top floor of Portcullis House, Southend, 15 storeys up, and we could feel the building swaying in the wind. That didn't do anything like the damage that the '87 storm did though. In 1987 it was mid-October, all the trees still had their leaves on and the soil was waterlogged by several weeks of wet weather.

[Jaded]

There was a 1990 storm, yes. It hit us in Oxfordshire pretty bad and we were without power for nearly 4 days. Luckily we had gas so we could wash. Otherwise it was just off to bed early.

The 1987 one happened when we were living up in the NW. It wasn't too bad a night. We had house guests so were on the sofabed. I put the TV on in the morning and thought we'd missed a huge IRA attack or a plague or nuclear war. The BBC were broadcasting with a desklamp, or so it seemed.

[Wowbagger]

Then

And now.

[Jules]

There was a 1990 storm, yes. It hit us in Oxfordshire pretty bad and we were without power for nearly 4 days. Luckily we had gas so we could wash. Otherwise it was just off to bed early.

I  was on a corporate team-building outward bound-lite week on Dartmoor the morning the wind blew in. We all ended up hiding behind a stone wall as it was impossible to stand up. When the rescue Landrover got to us we all had to sit on the windward side to stop it blowing over. As soon as we got back to our hotel  two large trees blew down trapping us there and then the power went off. Fortunately there was plenty of beer, the beer was on hand pump and the business was happy to pay our expenses without any question so we just sat in the bar by candlelight for two days and got very drunk. It was generally considered that this was a far better bonding activity than standing around in the  cold attempting to build bridges with an assortment of sticks and pieces of rope.

[Oscar's dad]

Given I am a very light sleeper it is amazing that I slept through the 1987 storm.  I was living in Bosham on Chichester Harbour at the time and several yachts were ripped from their moorings and blown many metres over the mud flats where some were ransacked by opportunist thieves the following day. 

[hellymedic]

There was a 1990 storm, yes. It hit us in Oxfordshire pretty bad and we were without power for nearly 4 days. Luckily we had gas so we could wash. Otherwise it was just off to bed early.

I  was on a corporate team-building outward bound-lite week on Dartmoor the morning the wind blew in. We all ended up hiding behind a stone wall as it was impossible to stand up. When the rescue Landrover got to us we all had to sit on the windward side to stop it blowing over. As soon as we got back to our hotel  two large trees blew down trapping us there and then the power went off. Fortunately there was plenty of beer, the beer was on hand pump and the business was happy to pay our expenses without any question so we just sat in the bar by candlelight for two days and got very drunk. It was generally considered that this was a far better bonding activity than standing around in the  cold attempting to build bridges with an assortment of sticks and pieces of rope.

Sounds like a dreadful, traumatic experience...

[Mr Larrington]

There was a 1990 storm, yes. It hit us in Oxfordshire pretty bad and we were without power for nearly 4 days. Luckily we had gas so we could wash. Otherwise it was just off to bed early.

I remember cycling to work in that one.  A gust stopped me dead emerging from the Stratford one-way system and I had to grab a lamp post in order to stay upright.  By home-time the wind had died to nothing chiz.

[hatler]

In '87 my brother was living in Brighton near the front. He's on the 4th floor about 150 yards from the sea and above Madeira drive. He was woken at 3am with pebbles hitting his windows.

Realising that there was probably a story in this (he worked for the Argus) he headed for work.

On leaving his front door he had to cling on to the nearest lamp post to avoid getting blown away, wait for the wind to subside ever so slightly, then run to the next lamp post, cling on, and so on until he got to work.

I slept right the way through (in Epsom). The best bit of news was that I was then working at a site which was on top of a hill near Sevenoaks. It was closed for the week.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The 1987 storm seems to have passed me by, but I remember the one in 1990 clearly. It had almost the same effect as in Wowbagger's 1987 photos - huge trees uprooted and the top of a nearby church spire blown down.

[LindaG]

The 1987 storm was just after I'd left home for the first time.  In my boyfriend's house, alone, the roof blew off.  This woke me up.  He was away at sea.

The 1990 one, living near Portsmouth, the wind blew the buggy over - with my daughter in it, on the path up to our front door.  She was fine.

[hellymedic]

I slept right the way through (in Epsom). The best bit of news was that I was then working at a site which was on top of a hill near SevenOaks. It was closed for the week.

FTFY...

[mike]

I was in sixth form at boarding school in 87, the storm blew over a load of the trees but I dont remember any damage to buildings.  I was mates with the guy who ran the maintenance, he knew I was a farmers son and asked if I'd mind missing lessons for a day to drive a tractor and help clear up