Just seen the ABC News,
Are you still with us Vince?
Does your house have a roof?
How many trees did you lose?
Did you say hello to Kevin?
Or are you still blacked out (I don't expect an answer to that)
Hope you and your family are well.

tikkat3 wrote:

Just seen the ABC News, Are you still with us Vince? Does your house have a roof? How many trees did you lose? Did you say hello to Kevin? Or are you still blacked out (I don't expect an answer to that) Hope you and your family are well.

Thanks for your thoughts mate...yep....still with us "Nuts".

The storm that came through was about the worst I've been through. It was basically a small cyclone. We got about 80mm of rain in probably 20-25 mins (that's 16" for you Imperial guys).

I was talking to a mate across the road and we were watching the clouds rolling in...they initially were nice and green (HAIL !!) then turned blacker than the inside of a dog's guts. I said to him that I thought we might get a bit of a storm out of it and I had better go home and close windows etc.

I was standing in the kitchen and I heard a gurgling sucking sound in the bathroom...checked the toilet and all the water had been sucked out of the bowl, then all the sinks and drains started gurgling and bubbling. It was then I knew that we were gonna get a hammering.

Sure enough, with about 5 minutes the wind started to really blow, the rain started with dinner plate size drops then it hit with a vengeance. Within the space of 1/2 dozen heartbeats the rain increased to a "waterfall" and blowing horizontal with marble sized hail and the wind turned into 10 gales.

Visibility was down to about 10 metres. Then the noise started. The covers blew off all my exhaust fans and the roof tiles started moving and banging. The roar of the wind was not enough to cover the sound of the trees snapping off and being ripped out.

A park next door to my place was almost totally denuded of trees, and those left standing no longer have any leaves. Houses all around have lost all or part of their roof and trees have fallen on cars and houses everywhere. Its taken 2 1/2 days so far to clean up the worst of the mess, but there is at least another week of work to do. The area that Kevin Rudd visited is about 15 minutes from my place...they got hit terribly hard.

The pics below show some of the damage/mess around my place.

The street out front of my place with my neighbour standing in my driveway.


The street diagonally opposite my place.


The Park next door to my place.


Looking across the road towards the Park and my place from a mates driveway.


The two houses opposite mine with wind and hail damage to the garage doors.


Cheers, Vince

Hi Vince, Glad you are OK. It was a doozy of a storm all right! I landed at Brisbane airport about 5 mins before it wallopped the place, we were the the last aircraft in there for a while and had to sit for an hour and a half before we could dock at the air bridge because no body would come outside to turn on the guide in lights . The lightning was incredible and we even saw it hit several times in one spot!!
Hope those 50,000 homes have power back today or soon as.
Regards.

Damn...that would have been scary sitting in an aircraft in that wind. I hope the airline looked after you with drinks etc. I can understand nobody wanting to come outside...the wind was the worst I have ever encountered. There are trees that are over a metre thick that have snapped off like toothpicks. We didn't get that much lightning around my place...don't know why, but there wasn't much at all.

As far as power is concerned, we are fairly lucky as all our power lines are underground. But even so we were without power for 24 hours. Some houses are still without power after 3 days. The power lines are like spaghetti after the wind...a real nightmare for the power guys.

Listening to the weather guys on the radio this morning and they said the storm was the result of a Super Cell. Nasty bugger, that's for sure.

By the way mate...welcome to Oz. What's happening in Brisbane?

Cheers, Vince

Lots of water. Glad your ok.

Dimitri

Lucky You Vince!
Better days to yours living area for future. Of course for whole Australia.
Kauko.

And Vince was out in it with his speedo on and a bar of soap.. ..Glad your and yours are O K...

Glad to hear you are well. I went through one in 79 and it almost killed me. GL Vince

Move to Minnesota Vince.
The two things that we don't have, that I see in your pictures, is Palm Trees, and all of that water.

We only have snow, and more snow.

Hey Bushy and Dimitri---With all of these Aussies communicating on this thread, don't you guys think that Dallan should put an Aussies Talk section in??

Eric

Naw...Just make sure they have Dallan issued Passports, visas or green cards...

No Green Cards.

Just make them cross a muddy river at night.

Then they will be qualified for food stamps and medical benefits.

Eric

Vince,

I'm glad to hear you are ok. Just be thankfull that your family is safe and you have a place to live. I'm willing to bet that the folks in your part of the world won't be standing around waiting for the government to bail them out (i.e. New Orleans, Louisiana).

Cary

Glad you are OK Vince.
Looking at the news I saw houses smashed.. like the one in Darwin..
Shivers!!

Glad you're OK Vince!

Glad ya got through it alright buddy
Joe