Wednesday, December 24, 2014

The Great Storm of 1987


This weekend, with evidently nothing better to do, The Boy sat down to watch The Weather Channel feature...10 Worst Hurricanes Ever! A certain curiosity with these things is to be expected around here.

A very pregnant Martha next to a downed live oak after tornadoes in 08.
 
Hurricanes are a regular feature of this part of the country and when they come they dominate the news...and they are featured events in people's lives and a recurring topic of conversation. Of course, a storm has to be a real monster to reach Jackson as a hurricane. Katrina managed it at Category 2.

The view from our driveway in Spring of 08.
 

The most direct threat for us is tornadoes. There were two (edit:make that five) yesterday down around Hattiesburg. So interest in severe weather is natural. He's a little obsessed though. This is Martha's doing but we shame her here...at least not at Christmas time.

Anyway, after watching the show and after 800 more questions about Katrina, he has begun to fixate on the Great Storm of 1987...a Hurricane (like?) storm in England has struck him as very curious and he's telling everybody about it and then asking questions. Like I said :coughMarthacough: he's got some weather issues.

I told him I knew where we could get some answers....Q.



No that didn't help (well it helped me..to force coffee through my nasal cavity...my favorite of the weather forcasts). I told him I'd ask y'all about. Anything you can convey about your own experience with the Storm will be passed on an much appreciated.

And Merry Christmas y'all.


Ice Cream taste better when you got no 'lectricity...and when you're pregnant.

21 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas to you, Erik, and your lovely family.
    I'll write more soon - will see what memories I can muster up about the storm of '87 - but I read about yours of yesterday and always think of you in these situations. Those pics are quite shocking.
    Love a bit of Spike!

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    1. Mary Christmas to you.

      You couldn't have been more than four or five in 1987 could you? So I can understand if it's tough to remember.

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    2. Oh the flattery, Erik! When the reality was that I had to get up next morning to go to work at the local dole office at the time, how glamorous...

      I think I know Mary Christmas...

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    3. The dole office...that must have been like a tornado every day.

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  2. Merry Christmas to you and yours and your drunken cat Erik

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    1. I couldn't believe him this morning. He's goofy enough without the booze.

      Merry Christmas man.

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  3. A very Merry Christmas to you all, Erik. The Great Storm really was quite something over here, although I'd imagine it was piffling compared to your storms. In Bristol it was extremely windy and there was quite a bit of structural damage. However, I recall that the South East of England got the worst of it. Lots of trees down, some buildings wrecked, bits of forests heavily damaged. The country was in shock.

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    1. Isn't Brighton in the South East?

      :)-

      Some of the pictures I saw looked familiar and pretty serious. From what I gathered there was a weatherman that told people there wasn't really anything to worry about...maybe I got that wrong.

      Merry Christmas to the Bears.

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    2. Michael Fish - he has never lived it down. He's on YouTube.

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    3. Sounds like our Scott Gronmark was tasked with interviewing Mr Fish after it was over...I think he needs to tell us more.

      According to the Wikipedia he claims to have been misquoted. Ha

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  4. Hope you and yours have a great Christmas Erik. All the best for the festive season.

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  5. A Merry Christmas to you and your family, Erik, from someone who slept through the Great Terror of 1987 in his little flat in central London. There was a dent in the car the next morning thanks to a falling tree branch, but it was only when I saw the damage done to Hyde Park that I realised something really out of the ordinary had happened. I had to interview the weather forecaster Michael Fish (who'd told everyone not to worry beforehand) about it a couple of days later, and when I used the word "hurricane" he almost blew a gasket, so I think you're right to describe it as hurricane-like.

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    1. Merry Christmas to you my man and yours.

      I wondered about that because there are technical qualifications for a Hurricane...but I can't imagine what difference it makes at 134 mph winds. Unless of course you're a weatherman that's just made an ass of himself.

      We've got all the meteorologists and special radars....Spike's still the most informative I've seen.

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  6. For some reason, the main recollection I have of 'The Great Storm' concerns a free-standing heavy metal cupboard that stood just outside our back door, full of Dad's garden tools. It weighed a ton and had remained in position all my young life in our London garden moving with us to take up a similar position in Ipswich from 1975 onwards. In all those years it had gone untroubled by wind and weather, rooted to the spot by its great weight. The morning after the storm of '87 we found it half way up the garden with its contents spread far and wide. Scary stuff, though not on the same scale as your storms.
    (FYI - There was a good Spike Milligan documentary on BBC4 just before Christmas, which is still on the iPlayer, if you can get that?)

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    1. The Boy is quite impressed with a flying tool shed...so am I.

      I'd say 137 mph wind qualifies as scary on anybody's scale.

      You posted something about that didn't you? I'll have to check for that...I've got nothing to do at the office today. So funny.

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  7. Merry Christmas, a little late, but seriously that shit comes and goes here and all I do is grit my teeth until it's over. Australian Christmas. Bah humbug. Also, in-laws.

    This place has weather too. Quite a lot of it.

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    1. Merry Christmas to you...our only Australian.

      What's worse Cyclones or In Laws?

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