Disaster!

We had a number of jobs to do today: check on the lock-up (to see whether the waters got in), check on Tucker's Hill and buy supplies for the arrival of Ike on Sunday. First job, the lock up. And what a disaster. It has a high, barrel roof (all built of steel) and large roll down doors on the front. The doors had a foot long vertical gash at the bottom through which, apparently, came the wind and the rain. The sight inside the lock-up defied belief. The previous day we'd moved the toilets that were outside to inside the lock up and, as the eye passed over us, we'd moved boxes of books, toys, bedding etc up off the floor - some of it into the toilets themselves. But, the wind got INSIDE the lockup and tossed the 30 toilets around like they were play things.



As we opened the door we could see a toilet on its back (these things are about 8' tall, blue plastic and movable by Nicky when they are empty - so large, but not too heavy)...then I saw Oisin's Halloween trick or treat basket by the door (a good 15' from where I know it was stored in a box). Then, after righting the first toilet we saw others knocked over - like dominoes. Then I picked up a can on its side and it was a full, brand new tin of floor preservative which - get this - had been in a stack of similar tins 15' away on the other side of the container. Just how strong was that wind that it caused all this!?!

Osh walking towards the lock-up - the sea would normally be the other side of the greenery in the background.
Doesn't look too bad until we worked towards the back and all the toilets had been thrown around like matchboxes.

With a rapidly expanding belly I wasn't much good at righting the toilets (too fat to squeeze between the gaps!) but we eventually got them upright and started on the upsetting task of finding out what was trashed and what had survived. Putting stuff inside the toilets was a godsend - worked a treat. But the boxes we'd stored on top of the toilets had, of course, been launched across the lock-up when the toilets fell over. I finally established that the stack of photo albums was safe, Nicky's diaries from years ago survived. Unfortunately a pile of second hand books are trash (we had a good 2' or more of salty storm surge in the place) along with a good number of photo frames...we might have saved some of the photos but I fear that my collection of photos from Bangladesh and Ghana (taken in the days before digital cameras and I don't have the negatives) have been lost forever. Nicky's collection of antique woodworking tools were all sitting in salt water - we've brought them back and rinsed them and currently drying them. Hopefully they will survive the experience. I didn't let Osh come to the back of the lock-up for fear he'd be too upset by the sight of his puzzles all utterly sodden but he was delighted to hear that the Christmas tree had survived, but quite how ruined the box of decorations is, is anyone's guess and ditto his toy box. The tide was coming in fast (though fortunately it was now a good 12' from the door) and we needed to deal with the immediate problems. Tomorrow's job is to go back and access the rest of the damage.

To add insult to injury, when we tried to leave we found that the huge, heavy roller door had jammed open and despite an hour's swearing and banging it with a hammer, it remained resolutely open. So long as we can shut it before Ike arrives, we'll be OK...no-one wants to nick a pile of portable toilets or boxes of sodden bedding (which I'm hoping I can rescue in the washing machine once I have some dry air to dry it all). And then, we got back to the house and the power went off again...cold pizza for lunch then!


All in all, things could have been a whole lot worse: Barrie might not have called and we might not have thought to go check on our things and move them; the lock up might not have been so full of toilets in which case the damage from just a few being thrown around could have been much worse; the bulk of our irreplaceable possessions had already been moved to the house and were out of harm's way; the wind could have taken the roof off the lock-up (hurricanes get very cross when they get in a tight space and have no obvious exit point). Awesome to think of the power of Hanna...and she was only a category 1, Ike is forecast to be a Cat. 2 and Gustav, that just raged through Cuba was a Cat. 5.

The sad, muddy, silty, soggy remains...

More from the weather zone as power and time permit!