Our Little Storm

Over the years we've been through a lot of storms with thunder and lightening and high winds, but non quite like the one of January 9th, 2011. The wind started howling about 3:30AM and then wild lashing of hail, after that the rain came down in sheets and the motor home started rocking. We hung on while this went on for about 3 hours. The next morning, expecting to find wide spread devastation we ventured forth. Our barbecue had been blown over which had never happened before; I picked it up before realizing I should have taken a picture. Unfortunately when it blew over it put a dent in the side of Harvey, which doesn't show in the picture.

The neighbour behind us had his trailer pushed off its jacks by the wind and it slid about 3 feet so he had to relocate it. Another few feet and they would have ended up in the canal. She said that it was moving so much they couldn't stand up so they got on their knees and prayed. She said even the dogs were kneeling beside them.

The neighbour right behind us had his awning wrecked. The radio reported the winds were up to 120 km/hr although I don't think it got that high where we were or there would have been much worse damage.

This boat was floating upside down in the bay in front of us. The night before it had been pulled up on the beach on the far side of the thatched shelter. So it blew end over end across the beach to end up in the bay.

 There was a lot of minor damage like torn awnings and bent flag poles. Some was not visible; one trailer had its skylight broken and got a lot of water damage. A motor home had water driven in by the rain and when the power finally came on it started a fire which burned most of his wiring. The power went off about 4 AM and never came back on until 7PM.

 Drifts of hail were still visible for awhile. The hail was about the size of peas, if they had been larger the damage would have been much worse. A tornado touched down about 5 miles from us and ripped the roofs off some trailers in another campground so we were lucky with our little damage.

All over the campground bark from the palm trees was scattered. The wind ripped them off the palms with enough force to scratch a number of RV's and cars. Fortunately, the palm beside us stayed intact.

The hail came down with such force that it flattened the fins on our rooftop heat pump and air conditioner. I spent 4 hours on my side laying on the roof straightening the fins, one at a time, on the heat pump. As my vocation, I knew damaged fins would reduce the efficiency of the heat pump by at least 30% so I got right at it. I've still got to do the air conditioner but its not warm enough to need it for awhile. We went for a drive and saw lots of damage in town so I guess we were pretty lucky. Hopefully no more storms.