Tag: lightening

Where is Noah when you need him?

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
Supermarket Carpark
Supermarket Carpark

I haven’t the foggiest idea who said  “be careful what you wish for – you might actually get it” Four serious thunderstorms in less than three days. That was fun!!  A fair amount of  property damage, serious damage to crops and structural damage all across the peninsula. Port Lincoln,  at the bottom of the Peninsula,  took the brunt of the damage but we took a fair hit ourselves with damage in the city center and the major shopping center. There was  flooding all around the place – not the damage to houses and sandbag kind of flooding, but the streets and carparks were flooded with the storm drains unable to cope with the volume of water. There was also a lot of leaks in the roof of the new  supermarket and several of the new shops were partly flooded with one still closed for repair.  The

Taken at the Garden Center - Not my photograph
Taken at the Garden Center – Not my photograph

thunder abated and the lightening faded and the rain stopped and we thought it was all over. Poured again an hour after that and kept going until after midnight. That’s when much of the flooding took place. The morning was quite but by lunch it started again – another cloudburst and thunderstorm. That stopped about 3pm and we had a break until about 5pm when we got hit yet again. We had a shorter, smaller storm the following morning and according to reports we had over 63mm of rain in two and a half days. Eveything is still damp and wet but the good thing – the thing we should be thankful for – is that it was thunderstorms and rain – THERE WAS NO WIND. With that amount of rain a high wind would have been a disaster –  these  gum trees would have come down like they did  some years ago. That was only light rain then but a very high wind and enough rain to loosen the soil. That would have been really serious.  So it’s all been fun and games these last few days and like me, even people who have lived here their entire life said they had never seen anything like it. Makes you thankful that we don’t have a river anywhere near here.

That's What Port Lincoln looked like - not my photograph -
That’s What Port Lincoln looked like – not my photograph –

Up here at my end of the town no flooding to speak of but the road and the gardens of the new houses are awash in water and mud. With only bare earth the workmen driving in and out – when they can – as well as people who have done nothing to the earth in the front of their houses, the area is like a giant mudbath. However it will dry out in time. At the moment when I have managed to get out with Benji, I have had to change shoes and wash his paws when we come back  for our  between storms walk.  At the moment the damage to crops is still being assessed but reports are that it could run into $$millions.

Round 2 begins

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

This morning dawned fresh and clear and until about an hour ago it was still so.  About then I started to see that the sky was dulling down and dark clouds were slowly moving in and sure enough, here we are in the middle of another thunderstorm. This is passing strange – we don’t generally have three in a row like this. Two in one day was bad enough but three in two days is trying the patience just a tad.  There are about 5000 homes without power – 100year old trees were picked up thrown over, along the main streets power-lines are down due to falling trees all of which I said yesterday, but this new storm, if it develops like the last one, could cause more damage. However, having said that, I don’t think it will. It doesn’t have the  same’ feel’ as the ones did yesterday. According to the statistics there were 120,000 lightening strikes across the State.  Anyway, Chienna is in the laundry on her bed and the little man is curled up on my bed. The reason for this is that he must have sneaked in and no one saw him. He was too quiet and it was only a few minutes ago that I went into my room and saw him. I didn’t have the heart to move him so he’s still there.   Yesterday was the first time I have ever seen him concerned during  thunder. Normally he’s not too fussed but yesterday it was very loud and the lightening was very bright.

The “flooding” was a lot of water on the roads, in gardens and elsewhere – it was NOT gushing through people’s houses, it did not threaten lives, it was at best ankle deep and apart from a few smallish puddles, it cleared away very quickly as the storm water drains caught up. The damage we did experience was caused by very high winds that threw down trees and brought down power lines. No one was hurt or injured, but it is interesting that this is the third year in a row that we have had a thunderstorm of this nature right at the very start of summer.