The Perfect Storm

After our last post the weather deteriorated badly, by the early hours of the morning the sound of the howling wind and the pounding of the rain on our roof had the lights on Alfie's baby monitor fully lit. The roar was deafening as we sat in bed listening to debris hitting the walls and the roof. There had been numerous power cuts in the area and we were surprised that our power had stayed on, at 2am our luck ran out as a very large tree across the street fell bringing down our neighbours power cable. It was just too dangerous to go outside but as the eye of the storm passed over around 4am I went outside. There was no wind at all and the silence all the more erie after the noise of the hours before. As I opened the door with torch in hand I had no idea of what to expect, despite being sodden everything with the house and garden seemed intact, but outside there was devastation. There was the tree that had blocked the road and fallen on Matt's trailer, while at the bottom of the road cars were floating with people sat on their roofs and many houses were flooded.

With daylight the full scale of devastation in Newcastle became clear. We decided that without power we would travel to Matt and Sharron's (also without power), the journey there was scary with trees down, debris and abandoned cars littering the streets. The BBQ got good use serving up bacon and egg sandwiches while numerous candles gave us some much needed light inside the house. Sat around with blankets and woolly hats it was good to sit around and chat without the distractions of televisions etc, we enjoyed the conversation over a beer and a glass of wine! We stayed the night there and returned in the morning to a warm and well lit house. It has certainly been a difficult 48 hours and powerful display of the power of mother nature.

Some images from around our house...

Some images from areas of Newcastle not as lucky as where we live...

We would have been the next house to flood as the water started to rise in the street. We got away with nothing more than damp carpets as some of the rain seeped in under the door... very lucky! Some areas were flooded to shoulder height and jet skis and boats were used to rescue people trapped by the rising water... crazy!