The Great Storm of 1987

[oddball]

Its 22 years ago since Michael fish made this weather announcement

 

 

 

And then this happened

 

 

 

 

My memories are at the time we were living with my mother in law,

the first thing we knew about the storm was her knocking on our bedroom door saying we had over slept.

The storm had taken out the electricity and no alarm clocks had gone off.We had slept through all the noise!

It didn't look to bad out the window

and we were not aware how bad it was until Kev goes to work

He was a mobile crane driver and phones me to say that he had been lifting trees out of peoples houses, off of cars and from the roads.

[Mk2Jo]

I was living at home still at the time and like you, had no power so had to go to work without washing my hair

 

The fence was down between our house and the neigbours (fell on my dad's Cortina) and I had to drive about 7 miles to work dodging the fallen trees and brick walls that were littering the main roads.

 

Got to work and after an hour the power was restored there and so we had to stay at work ... we were hoping that the power would be out for days

 

The boss let us home earlier than normal and when I got home there was still no power so had to wash my hair in cold water

[SmokeEm]

I woke up at 4am and thought I'd heard my Mum calling me. I could see there was a light on in the hallway so assumed they were up. I shouted 'Did you just call me?' To which I got the response 'No'

 

Right then me thinks, I'll turn over & go back to sleep.

 

It was then I realised I couldn't turn over coz I was pinned to the bed by a tree!

 

I shouted for my Dad to come & lift it off me (My arms were immovable)

 

My Mums face was a picture

 

Coz of the glass being everywhere, I promptly grabbed a blanket & went back to sleep on the couch!

[trakevlyn]

I remember getting up and going to do my paper round and having to climb over and through fallen trees just to get to the paper shop and when i got there there wasnt any papers as the trains werent runnig due to trees across the line so went home and did what most teenagers do fack all

[EscortHeadCase]

Time to make people feel old, I was only 5 months old then....

[SmokeEm]

Time to make people feel old, I was only 5 months old then....

 

[caprinerd]

i was living in southall west london and that was the area that got hit hard in the london area we had tree`s on motors and houses for over a year i couldnt get into work because of tree`s wall and roofing being in the streets

[V6MAT]

dont remember it as i was -2

[FredTransit]

I remember the storm itself, we have a luton bought new in 1986 that got the bonnet dented by a huge tree branch but we got off light.

 

19 years later I did the drama doc about it, filmed on a holiday caravan site in a howling gale!

[Vista]

I remember it well, I was in Gosport at the time, kept up all night by howling winds and hearing trees hitting the ground everywhere. Half expected one through the window any minute.

 

In the morning we were told we had been blessed with a few days off work (I was a naval engineering apprentice at the time)...................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However the follow up given shortly after (by a smug looking git that knew damn well we thought he meant PROPER days off work) was that our days off work were going to be spent helping clear the debris and damage around the town!

[Smudger105e]

Was working in an Office in Croydon on a night shift, and hoping to get a train home at 7 am to Hove. There was gravel being blown against the window, which wasn't too bad except we were on the 11th floor! Couldn't get home, slept in the mail room, did a 40 hour shift, and got paid for it too! Lost most of the fence panels in the garden and one shed collapsed, which got renewed on the insurance, which the fence panels didn't

[Mrs O/H/C]

I was staying at my nans house in Colliers Wood, Got woken up to be told i had overslept

 

my nan said it was best if i did not ride my motorbike that morning to work because of the trees and debris.

 

So went to the tube station ..it was closed

 

Went to the bus stop..but the queue was so long that i probably wouldnt have got on any buses till lunchtime.

 

So...i decided in my wisdom to get my bike and ride to New Malden...oh my god !!!

 

What a flipping journey..trying to avoid everything on the roads.

 

Got there ok and decided to park in the warehouse at my workplace so i would come out to a bike at the end of the day. (it was still windy)

 

In the evening Lead foot and i decided to go to boxhill ...which was a stupid thing to do as there were trees everywhere.

 

If it happened today, i wouldnt go to such lengths to get to work !!!!

[escortmad79]

I was on holiday in Prestatyn with my parents... scary to think we were staying in a static caravan when the storm was going on!!

[caprinerd]

I was on holiday in Prestatyn with my parents... scary to think we were staying in a static caravan when the storm was going on!!

caravan and storm in the same sentence

[escortmad79]

I was on holiday in Prestatyn with my parents... scary to think we were staying in a static caravan when the storm was going on!!

caravan and storm in the same sentence

One of them ones... still lucky we didn't end up flying across the countryside!

[Vista]

For those that don't remember it, there some good footage in this news report

 

 

[over_head_cam]

I slept through it

[jimbo]

I slept through it

 

Me too. Even though my window blew out in the night

 

Poor old Michael Fish. That's an oft-misrepresented bit of footage

 

From this article:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... -Fish.html

 

 

"Oh dear, the H-word. The one black mark on Fish's work record, which will doubtless form the first line of his obituary, came on the night in October 1987 when he told viewers: "Earlier on today, a doris rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't."

 

By breakfast time, devastating winds had torn across Britain, killing 18 people and causing £1.4 billion of damage. The storm that wreaked this havoc was not, in fact, the Atlantic hurricane to which Fish and the lady caller had referred, but a separate system in the Bay of Biscay. And Fish was working from a forecast prepared by his colleague Bill Giles. The meteorological mud has stuck, and Fish is not happy to be reminded of it.

 

"The BBC and the Met Office made a decision, after the 10th anniversary of the hurricane, that enough is enough," he says. "It was actually quite a good forecast, because I said, 'Batten down the hatches, there's some extremely stormy weather on the way.' But no one lets the facts get in the way of a good story."

[zetecmk2]

i was a trainee forrestry worker! busy busy busy!!! took 2 days to clear the road from a23 to cuckfield. lots of old people were frightened at the thought of being stuck in thier houses and the roads had to be cleared...end!! now, if i was self employed

but i wasn't!!

[X-pack-Glyn]

I was 13 years old at the time and fishing with my mates that night.... we thought it was great fun... we had to pull the rods in and we pulled our brollies (didnt have bivvies then) right down over us and made sure we were away from any trees... was not the most productive fishing trip but awesome fun, i remember the day after was a beautifull day as well, calm with bright sunshine.

 

Even now i love a good storm when im fishing...cant beat it...and i get the lake to myself too

[Mr2Caps]

I was living just outside Hastings at the time and was woken in the early hours by a loud wooshing sound, my bedroom was in the loft and I put my hand up and could feel the roof moving up and down! Got up rather quickly and went downstairs, to see my dad watching the overhead power lines arcing in the field behind our house. In the morning we found sticks of Rhubarb in our garden, which weren't ours, and the neighbours shed had disappeared! We didn't have any power for 4 or 5 days and there were teams from scottish electricity connecting everyone back up! Because we had no electricity, it's actually the first time that I have seen the news reports posted earlier!

[sab6024]

I was 8 and we'd gone to London as my Dad had to see someone about books or summat. We were staying with friends and I slept right through it but the time I woke up shook me a bit as a tree had fallen onto someone's car next door and was parked in front of my Dad's van which was OK. I was more worried about getting back to Cornwall safely, but we stayed there for a few days until it had calmed and the roads were back to normal.

[RossMK2]

i wasnt born till 1994 but my i had been told about this

[pauln]

We didn't have any power for 4 or 5 days and there were teams from scottish electricity connecting everyone back up! Because we had no electricity, it's actually the first time that I have seen the news reports posted earlier!

 

SEEBoard was quite busy. I had some guys from Midlands electric with me putting up lines. Our team was one linesman, his foreman an electricion my mate and me (substation plant fitter). We were a bit stretched. We were out on the night and came back down the A21 in our panelvan and trailer rig to Tunbridge Wells nearly being blown over twice (had no choice but to let the van drift until the gust ended). Spent the night in the depot until it all subsided. We had some fantastic customers who had been off for days who were so nice to us who found ways to get cups of tea to us (and some complete knobheads who did'nt appreciate that some of us had been working 20hrs a day for a fortnight to get then back on).

[Mr2Caps]

Where we lived there were overhead lines and the trees that fell had brought them down, so was not an easy or quick job to sort it out. A lot of trees had to be sawn up first! We did appreciate the work the guys were doing, the number of trees that fell near us was huge! Our house lost a ridge tile, yet houses just down the road lost their entire roofs!