Friday, May 1, 2015

Storm Disaster 2015

Dog bed is ravaged by winds and pot plants have hit the deck!
 I have been drafting two other posts during April, but they haven't been finalised, so I thought I'd post the reason why. I had a family wedding in Adelaide April 18th so I had a couple of days off before that and my husband and I  enjoyed a little RnR in South Australia.

However, that was the end of the RnR... we returned to NSW admist massive wind and rain storms. Our plane circling for more than an hour before getting permission to land in Sydney.

When we did finally return to home base in the Hunter Valley - we found our place had see the impacts of the winds.

Banana plants have blown over

a bed of storm  blown and torn leaves cover my lawns and meditation decks.
 But before long, we had our orange State Emergency Service (SES) uniforms on, and we were out volunteering in our community. Only to discover our blown over banana plants and pot plants were NOTHING.....

 Here, my team assess a large tree leaning on a two story home and the damage done to the roof.

 On another house, we climb up to repair the damage done by tree's to the tiles. Here's we're placing plastic over the problem area by tucking it under the stronger tiles.

Here my team are involved in ferrying isolated community members back to higher ground - which soon became nick-named "mainland".

Since Monday 20th April, We've been volunteering 8 full and long days.

The effects of the massive storm are slowly being cleaned up - while today another massive weather event hits our northern east coast capital, Brisbane. Thoughts and Prayers to everyone already affected by storms this month, and those feeling it come down on them tonight!

News links with stories of the storm are here
Newcastle Herald - the Aftermath
Sydney Morning Herald - Storm of the Century
Sky News - Devestation of the Storms

3 comments:

Jeanie said...

Oh Tamara, I'm so sorry -- for the damage to your own place and also for the damage to your town. You and your husband are great to get out and help put things back together. It sounds like a wonderful helping community. But so sad you have to deal with it in the first place.

Sending hugs and prayers that no more terrible storms hit.

Jillian said...

This is terrible. Sorry about this and the work you have to put to put everything back together to normal. Natural events and disasters are so hard because they are so unpredictable, and we can never truly prepare for it. Hopefully everything will return more to normal soon.

Unknown said...

Oh dear - I hope things are slowly getting back under control?