Friday 18 June 2010

Storm of the century

We had a huge storm today. It hit our little village with a force that no-one here has ever seen before, especially at this time of year. Our power was out all day, the rain beat so hard on our old windows that it eventually poured right through them and flooded our hallway. We heard terrible breaking sounds and cracking sounds, though we couldn't see what caused them until the storm settled a little, enough to go out and inspect the damage.

The storm blew our front fence over and knocked part of the roof on the main house off


It also blew the end off of our other out building



There are other minor bits and pieces, but we were blessed compared to our neighbors. The widow next door had a hole the height of my body in her roof and the courtyard was full of broken down trees (one of which had fallen through the roof causing the hole)

The other neighbor had the trees in front of their house blow down



and they had considerable damage to their roof, including the loss of their chimney.



The people on the street rallied to help one another. The old bachelor across the street had no damage to his house and came out to help us put the fence up temporarily (it will have to be replaced), he then went next door to help the old widow.

We live in a rural agricultural village, people without much money. They farm their land and raise their animals. this storm is a real blow for them, not only is there damage to their property, but, like us, they also have considerable damage to their food crops in the garden. Not only was there considerable damage today, but there are more storms predicted, so it will be a case of patching up as much as we can, securing everything and bracing ourselves for the coming weather.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh you poor things. I hope the storms to come are not as damaging.
It's lovely to have neighbours who rally round and help each other - it makes things a little bit easier to bear.
Thinking of you all.

marit said...

That's awful! It is good to have good neighbours though, and I hope the weather improves. Take care.

mrsjohn said...

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Sally said...

Oh my! I am so glad that you're all okay. That must have been very frightening. Wonderful that you have such lovely neighbours.
Take care!!!