27 years ago today...

[scarey55]

I was working in Newcastle and living near Andover at the time. I woke up (thinking it was a bit windy during the night) and couldn't understand why there was nothing on the TV. I think that one programme was being broadcast from a small cupboard!

I was due to fly back home that day but all flights had been cancelled so we took a company car and drove home. My, what a journey that was started out OK-ish but the further south we got, the worse the debris was, not a journey I would like to repeat.

[Knight of Albion]

I was a student in West Wales - we had flooding but no wind damage. Walking along a lane I saw a ewe wedged under a wire fence with just her nose above water so rashly jumped in to rescue her. A full grown exhausted waterlogged sheep is very, very heavy and I remember having to shove her head underwater to get her out of the fence. When she was free she scrambled up the bank pulling me with her! We both then lay in the lane getting our breath back.
Stupid thing to do, as the farmer told me.

A noble thing to do.

A blessing on your soul.

[Verinda]

I was working as a gardener at a large hospital, it had extensive grounds and loads of trees...but a lot less trees after that storm. A whole line of beautiful cherry trees all blown down, and numerous old specimen trees lost. A lot of work for us gardeners too.

[bearded bloke]

I was really saddened to hear of the loss of the trees at Severn Oaks.

Or One Oak as it's now known not much shading from the afternoon sun on The Vine cricket patch these days

[Martin H]

A friend told me that they had planted seven new ones, so now it really ought to be called Eight Oaks. I haven't been to investigate though, it's south of the river.

[bearded bloke]

I heard the new ones got uprooted

[Greenleaves]

I remember it very well, I was driving back from Manchester, the other half was 8 months pregnant with #1 son, I got within 3 miles of home when the road was blocked by a fallen tree. My employer had a few weeks earlier invested in mobile phones, the type where the hand set sat on a box the size of car battery. At 23.40 I get a call from the other half hardly audible but in distress. I obviously looked panicked as a policeman attending the fallen tree ask if I was OK, as soon as I said heavily pregnant he jumped in his car and said "right follow me"


We drove over some gardens to avoid the tree and I am trying to keep up with a Volvo police car with blue lights flashing whilst driving a Fiesta 1.1. We got home in no time and both rush in expecting to deliver a baby..... Nope the OH was panicking because we had a power cut and was worried the phone would not work in case she went into labour even though she had called me. Thankfully the policeman saw the funny side!

[Glutton4...]

I was 24, and I slept through it!

My Mum remembers it, it's her Birthday, and the hurricane gets commented on every year. I do remember waking up, and thinking it sounded very windy LOL

[pigletwillie]

I spent 27 hours on a ferry outside the port of Dover because the sea was too rough to come in. Even to this day I cannot stand wobbly water that has more than a foot of swell. It was carnage onboard.

[Alison]

Just a bit blowy where I was but no more than any other storm although remember it being all over the news. Main reason I remember it though is because my eldest niece was born and can't believe she's now that old, married and with two little boys!

[Green Gerkin]

I cant believe it was 27 years ago.......I was only 7 but can still remember it so well, it was mega scary. Spent the night in the lounge.
Sadly there were a lot of accidents down my way.


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[Greenleaves]

My over riding memory apart from the false alarm was the sound...never had nor never have heard anything like it

[Catseyes]

My twin sister and I was 6 when we had the storm and I remember sitting in the kitchen with her and my dad by candle light as we had no power. It was scary but my mum slept through it and missed it all!

I remember going for a drive after and seeing the devastation. Also my next door neighbours shed roof was no where to be found and there were tiles embedded in the grass!!

Someone we knew had his chimney fall in on him whilst he was in bed but luckily it didn't hurt him!

Btw I am in kent and think we were one of the areas affected pretty severely


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[bussinspain]

Blimey - that long ago? I was living in Felixstowe in Suffolk at that time. And I remember waking up (yes I slept through all that wind!) and wondering what the H**L was going on outside. I then realised what was happening, pushed hubby out of bed and yelled "MY BIRDS"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had a new mixed aviary in the back garden - the roof was lifting! There we were outside wearing motor-cycle crash helmets because of the flying debris, hanging onto the roof! We managed to put an old railway sleeper on top of the aviary roof. Then came the fun part of catching all the birds and putting them into spare cages and boxes for safe keeping. My aviary birds were then moved into the dinning-room. Thankfully no damage to the house at all, even though we couldn't get out of our road.

[VolesAteMyPeas]

Hmmm. I was 9. I remember waking up to the news that it had been really bad down south. Don't remember anything happening in the North. We lived in Cheshire at the time. My husband (12 years older than me) doesn't remember a thing as he was at uni then and probably asleep or drinking he says!