The great storm of 1987

[sp54]

Amazingly, it is 20 years today that the worse storm for nearly 300 years hit the south of England leaving a trail of destruction behind it :o


What are your memories of that night ?[well early hours :rolleyes:]


The first I knew of it was when I was woken up in the early hours by the howling wind.The strength of the wind was like nothing I'd heard before, but there had been no warning :huh: We had an enormous tree just a few feet from our bedroom window and I was worried it would crash into our bedroom, so hubby and I went downstairs away from the danger of falling trees :lol: Our kids were safe at the back of the house, and for the first night ever, son number 2 who was then 3 actually slept all through the night :rolleyes:

There was no power and by the sound of all the crashing and banging going on outside, this was no normal storm. It was frightening as you could hear things but not see them, so we listened to a battery radio and started to realise how bad things were :o:eek: At dawn you could see the speed of the clouds, and the damage :( We lost all our fences, and next doors shed was on our patio. How it missed ending up through the patio doors is a miracle :lol: We couldn't get out of the cul de sac we lived in due to fallen trees, and there were trees down in every street in our town and debris everywhere.

Our sons woke up and saw the devastation, and true to their characters, the older more sensitive one burst into tears and was worrying about everything and everyone, and the 'little devil' one burst out laughing and thought it was all a great adventure :rolleyes:.

It was a really scary night :yes:

What do you remember most?

[Eeyore]

Thankfully we got off lightly up here, just a few strong winds but I remember seeing the forecast where we were told there was no hurricane and tehn seeing the terrible devastation on TV, I remember actor Gordon Kaye from Allo Allo being seriously hurt when a tree came through his car or something

[Planet 24]

I was living on the South Coast then and to be honest I slept through it and the other half cycled to work at 4.30 am. The things you can do when you are young.:rolleyes:
Mind you there was total devastation just 10 miles down the road and my aunt lost her roof:(

[Noise Stopper]

I was visiting chums at the Mount royal hotel in the West End, we had been in a room with no windows most of the evening and when I went to leave the Porter stopped me stepping out of the door onto Bryanston Street just as a wheelie bin went past doing about 40 MPH.
leaving that morning it was like a scene from on the beach or 28 days later in the West End.

Ian :nfh1:

[lotus eater]

I had been living in London for 3 months and was in a bedsit that had a fireplace and chimney. I had never lived in a house with a chimney before, and the sound of the wind down it that night scared me out of my wits. I had no idea what was happening! There was a giant tree at the end of the garden and I thought it was going to land on my head when I was in bed, as my bed was under the window. I didn't get any sleep that night at all!

When I got up the next morning I had to get to work in Westminster. My friend from downstairs and her boyfriend, who had a van, gave me a lift from north London. It took us about 3 hours to get 7 miles into central London. It was like the end of the world, with trees down and debris everywhere.

At lunchtime some of us went for a walk down Victoria Street. There was glass all over the pavements from smashed windows, and in St James' Park loads of broken branches and trees down. It looked really sad and bedraggled. We couldn't believe our eyes. We must have been crazy to get to work that day, but lots of people managed it.

[I can't believe it was 20 years ago! :eek:]

LE

[Beth]

I was living in Bedfordshire at the time and we got the outside end of it

we did lose a tree in the garden :D but no major damage to us, my great aunt, God bless her, lived in 7 Oaks and was in tears as it had been reduced to one Oak!

[Annabel]

I recall waking up from the sound of the wind howling outside and looking out of the window it was pitch black as the street lights had gone out. that was scary as living in london you are used to light coming from somewhere at night.

the next morning the place was strewn with debris, bin rubbish, branches, twigs leaves, but otherwise people were getting on with life as normal. it was only when we ventured down a few leafy side streets over to the park we could see trees ripped up and fences over, trees blocking roads, slates off roofs.

i read today on bbc website that kew gardens lost 1000 trees but now when they look back on it they think it was the best thing that happened to them!

[sp54]

There is a programme on tonight about it on ITV1 at 9pm :)

[Sparrow]

They were talking about this on the lunchtime news yesterday on BBC1 - they brought Micheal Fish back to do the weather forecast - 20 years to the day!! The presenter asked him if he was sure we hadnt got a storm coming:rolleyes::)

[er 59]

Remember it well my twins woke me up and said mummy im scared so i ended up in the bottom bunk bed with both of them my other daughter and other half slept through the whole lot i was pregnant at the time with my son it was a heck of a squeeze in that bed the wind was whipping everything around in the loft i hate to admit but there i was reassuring my children and thinking s**** im scared too :lol:

[sp54]

:lol:@ Er

It seemed like it was the end of the world, it was so scary :o