26 years since the Great Storm

[WATFORD zero]

I was living in a flat near the dials with my bed in the dormer window in the roof. Having had a skinful, i slept right through it, until my girlfriend rang next morning to see if i was ok. Looking out my window, a tree had gone through the roof of a house further down the road. A few doors up and i would have been sleeping with the trees.

Having spent an eternity trying to iron my shirt (not realising there was no power) i was one of the few to get into work. Day after, i discovered one of my staff had answered the main phone line to a journalist from the financial press (and without finding out who was calling) told them quite descriptively the situation we were in. If you thought the shit was flying that night, the next few days were worse, being one of the major high street banking groups and getting the quotes plastered all over the press.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I was at University in Portsmouth at the time, living in Southsea in a 3rd floor loft conversion with a local family. There were about 7 of us all in the house, and we all went to 5th Avenue nightclub on the seafront that night. It was bloody windy walking there at about 10:30, but even worse coming out at about 2am. When we got home the top of the house was gently swaying, and the bloke I roomed with was petrified (he was from Reading). I told him it’s just a gale, living as I did on Shoreham Beach I was a veteran of many coastal gales.

Only in the morning did the enormity of the storm become clear – on the walk into lectures, all the shop windows had blown out along Albert Road, there were trees down everywhere, and many buildings had lost chimneys and gable ends. Southsea common was under sea water as the low pressure along with the in excess of 100mph winds generated a tidal surge over the sea wall.

One of the blokes on my course, who has also gone out clubbing, didn’t make it home, but ended up sleeping in a bed in a furniture showroom, after the windows were blown out. He got a decent night’s sleep apparently.

Later that week we went on a Geology field-trip to the Isle of Wight, and there is / was a pub on top of Culver Down which had has it’s entire slate roof stripped off, and the slates were embedded in the field to the NE, for a distance of up to a mile.


One interesting fact was that the strongest windspeed measured in England that night was at Shoreham, at 100 knots (115mph) at about 3am. As I was from Shoreham, when we discussed the storm itself in a Meteorology lecture not long after I took some pride that the weather station about 1/2 mile from my home was responsible for that record.

The Jan 1990 storm in Southsea was just as bad, much more floodign from the sea, and I personally watched a the side of a neighbours house in Fawcett Road collapse. Oddly as it was only the loft and 1st floor that were exposed, we had to knock on their door to tell them what has happened.

 

[daveinprague]

Just remembered walking along Western Road, and one of the big stores had previously had scaffolding (which remarkably remained) covered by a huge taup...this was working like a massive whip and I joined a queue to run when it was on its upward swing....and this was when it was dying out..pretty scary

 

[Since1982]

I was at University in Portsmouth at the time, living in Southsea i

Still a polytechnic then surely! And where I am proud to say I got my degree - Portsmouth Poly BA Hons Politics.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Still a polytechnic then surely! And where I am proud to say I got my degree - Portsmouth Poly BA Hons Politics.

Yes, sorry - it converted a couple of years later.

 

[Triggaaar]

so many trees down in the woods and you could see right though into Hollingdean.

I remember the storm and aftermath well, but I never knew it was that bad.

 

[Leighgull]

I remember the storm and aftermath well, but I never knew it was that bad.

A walk round stanmer great woods still shows the trunks of the massive trees felled that night.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

some good photos in here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/content/image_galleries/great_storm_1987_gallery.shtml?8

 

[SouthCoastOwl]

I was working at Gatwick and living in H/H at the time. I got back from a late shift at about 11 and it was getting a bit blowy but went straight off and slept through the storm.

Pulled back the curtains the next morning to discover other houses had donated; 2 sheds (both in kit form), 3 wheel barrows, 2 BBQs, 1 lawn mower, god knows how many assorted trashed fence panels and half a neighbour's roof. I managed to return most of the complete stuff to it's rightful owners except one BBQ which did sterling service for the next decade or so, finally being laid to rest at Brighton tip.

 

[BBassic]

I was only two at the time. Slept right through it.