Where were you 20 years ago today?

[bazzanoid]

...Southern Britain has begun a massive clear-up operation after the worst night of storms in living memory... ...Commuters were today advised to stay at home as hundreds of roads and railway lines remain blocked by fallen trees. Some houses and apartments had their roofs blown off....

Where were you in the 'Great Storm' 20 years ago? I was watching it all from my bedroom window on my birthday of all days... first got woken up by the noise of a dustbin whistling past my window on the first floor.......

 

[pokemon_master]

I Didn't Exist then.. Well, OK, I did exist but not like I do today..

 

[wideeyes]

I have no idea I was 5. I do remeber my mum telling me a van had blown in to my auntys roof who lived is the South East.

 

[Minniespal]

I was in Italy with friends. Missed everything until I came home and found out that my parents garage had blown away.

 

[aaronandterri]

I Remember my dad having to go out to get my aunt and uncle and there baby, they lived in a flat on the front of the thames, and there windows all blew in, they were hiding in a stairway when he went to get them,

I remember my mum being worried about her sister and the kids as they were on there own, they lived across the road, she knocked to see if they was ok, and woke them up they had slept through it!

 

[mandymouse]

Paul & I had not long moved into our first home, but I don't remember the storms happening - I just remember the whole Michael Fish report

Mandy

 

[Andy B]

I had just started a new job as a Loss Adjuster dealing with insurance claims in the South West London area and I had just picked up my first company car. We slept though the storm but woke to no electricity. I drove to the office in central London as the tubes were not running, we were waiting for all the calls asking us to deal with the claims, in fact the next day was very quiet, it took a few days for the claims to come through, but I was kept very busy thereafter and say a lot of roofs.

 

[AliceGardner]

I was at home ill and off school with some sort of fever/cold thing... missed all the excitment of that time (something landed on one of our prefab classrooms and crushed a large chunk of the roof...).

Alice

 

[mark&sue]

I woke up and looked out the window, said to my then boyfriend at the time there is a hurricane outside and went back to bed. Slept through the rest of it and went into work no problems although I rember lots of other staff phoing in to say they could not make it as trees were blocking roads etc


susan

 

[fizz13]

I know i got the day off school as we had so much debris outside and my mum refused to drive, they said on the radio that they are predicting another great storm soon as they think its on a 20 year cycle could be scraemongering though,

 

[BONZO]

We'd been married for month and living in a flat.

I remember Alison getting up and saying things like "it's really wild and windy out there, I can see the street lights bending in the wind".

I must've mumbled something like "oh just come back to bed silly woman".

In the morning there were trees and debris everywhere and the train station was shut. We got into the car and headed off to London via various front gardens and footpaths avoiding all the carnage.

trouble was that i was low on petrol and the A2 was at a standstill and no petrol stations open so we just abandoned the day, came home and watched the news.

 

[wils]

I went to school as usual though a lot of trees had blown down. I remember some of the boarders telling me that the window of their dorm had blown in and shattered (I think they had a lucky escape as no one was hurt)

 

[Dimplenose]

I was in living in a flat in Surbiton. When I woke up I found there was a power cut. I looked out of the window and saw a bus drive past which was odd as the busses didn't go down our street. I sat and watched things being blown around for a while - it was quite amusing to watch one chap trying to cycle!

After a while I saw one of the neighbours going around to the car park with a chain saw - that was when I started to get worried. DH and I rushed outside to find a tree had fallen and flattened 7 cars including ours.

Neither of us could get to work but DHs boss made him take a days leave because he couldn't get in!

Libby

 

[florida sun]

You know what, I cant remember at all!!!, I do remember the Michael Fish bit, but nothing else.

 

[Booknut]

I was 14 and living in Canada so well protected from the wind

DH was 22 and living in Corsham. He was silly enough to believe Mr Fish and left home (in a block of flats which provided cover until he had to turn right), got on his motorcycle, took said right turn and didn't make it!

 

[arieliwish]

I was 18 and working for the contractors at sellafield, so spent most of the time drunk/hungover/thinking about next works do!! However, I do remember the news reports and particularly the bloke off Allo Allo who had a tree go thru his car and into his head!!

Can't believe its 20 years, mind you can't believe I'm 38!!

Lynn

 

[TinkTatoo]

I was at home with DH (then DBF) but had to drive to Brighton with a colleague the next morning for a conference. I couldn't believe the amount of uprooted trees and damage we saw. It took ages for me to get there as everyone was being extra careful

 

[Callum]

We were living in South Wales at the time and were totally unaffected by the storm.

We had a friend from Lancashire staying with us and when he phoned his mother she asked "Did the storm affect you?" His reply was "What storm?" It had completely missed us.

It was only later in the morning that we started picking up news items about how devastating the winds had been.

 

[R.S.Winters]

ive also no idea as i was 2 yrs old lmao
not very far from here no doubt, but i couldnt tell u where!

 

[Hilary]

We flew out from Cardiff to Minorca in the evening, and I do remember it being a bit bumpy on take off!!

As Callum said, the storm didn't really affect South Wales, but we were told afterwards that our flight had been the last one of the day allowed to take off from Cardiff because of the worsening conditions.

My brother lived in Kent at the time of the storm and said it sounded like a train thundering through the house - but luckily they had no damage.