What were your experiences of the big storm of 1987??

Question

I was six and remember lying in my bed thinking that i was going to be brave and not call out to mum and dad because it was only a storm....lol. I finally gave in and stayed up all night watching it with mum, dad and my brother. I remember the sky being very yellow and the roof tiles coming off. I think we aquired one of our neighbours sheds that night too.

Answer 1

We had tiles ripped off our roof and the troughing came down but apart from that we were fine thankfully.

Answer 2

I slept through it. When I woke up in the morning there was no power, we couldn't get past the end of the road because of several fallen trees. A neighbour's big tall tree had fallen against the side of the house but fortunately it was the top part so the tree broke rather than the wall. Just as well because my parents were sleeping the other side.
I noticed on my way to school several days later that one of the woods I went past every day wasn't there any more. All the trees had blown flat like match-sticks because they were on an exposed slope and we could suddenly see miles further than before to the South Downs.

Answer 3

My Dad was a Police Officer working the night shift in Buckingham Palace. I remember him saying that they had to dodge the large trees that were uprooting and being blown across the grounds. The sound of the tiles scraping across the roof woke me up, my mother was sitting on the stairs crying cause the long heavy velvet curtains were blowing so much, (2 months previous to that night a girl had thrown a stone and made a small crack in our living room window) we sat on the stairs and waited I was 10 and at the time. It wasn't long before the window went through, large shards of glass flew through the room embedding itself into walls and furniture. Everything blew through to the kitchen, the back window unable to take the pressure also smashed. All our belongings were scattered over the garden. We lived in East Tilbury and spent the rest of the night over a neighbours house.

Answer 4

I left home in East Surrey about 6.00 am to go to work in Westminster on my motorbike. I slalomed around fallen trees and debris for a couple of interesting miles, but when I went down Sanderstead Hill some trees completely blocked the road. I tried pavements and even one in-and-out-drive, but could not make more than another half mile.
It was a hairy but thrilling ride out and just as hairy going home again.
My wife and I and two neighbours walked round our village later and saw trees through rooves and on top of flattened cars. The most dramatic sight was a heavily wooded hill down into the Caterham valley. Most of the trees were uprooted and we could see clearly across to the hills on the other side of the valley for the first time in living memory.
Our only damage was a broken pane of glass in the greenhouse and a tree that was blown to an angle of 45 degrees - where it settled and grew.

Answer 5

I was actually called to go into work as the roof had been ripped off our works control room. I got up, left the house but found that my village had been cut off by fallen trees, so I went back home to bed. I slept whilst my wife and son watched the trees at the bottom of our garden as they fell.
The most enduring memory is of the next day. The village was still cut off and it was amazing to see whole families walking around to view the damage. There were people on the streets who had never before been seen in the village during daylight. All the commuting dads were at home as they too were trapped.

Answer 6

I was working at a place called Birdworld. We only had one casualty - a flamingo that had been blown against the shed. However, a large tree came down through our Bataleur Eagle aviary. the eagles were trapped in a small part of the aviary, and we spent all day trying to cut the tree down without letting the eagles out, or panicking them too much.

Answer 7

I was married to my first husband who had to wake me up because I was sleeping through it. We had to go downstairs as our roof was coming in and landing on the ceiling above us. The next day we could not get out the back door or down the side of the house as our roof was lying there. We spent several months with tarpaulin over half of the roof.

Answer 8

I was in a tent on the coast of France holding on to the tent poles and watching the lighting hit 20 feet away. Next day a French family, a middle aged couple and older gent, tried to put a tent up just before the drop to the beach... very slippy.... they brought double mattresses to sleep on. The old gent kept falling down the slope to the beach or getting pushed... madness. A couple in a tent right by us had disappeared, and we thought they'd been blown away. We went out looking for them and found they'd moved their tent next to a building. I still get wobbly hearing rain on the window.

Answer 9

Unlike other replies, I WAS born and I WAS a grown up but I really did sleep through it - woke up to find trees down across the street and couldn't get to work - spent the day watching everyone else on TV trying to get to work and Michael Fish being ridiculed - poor s-d!

Answer 10

I was about 8 and half months old so don't remember it, but we lived in Great Barr near Birmingham so it wasn't as strong up here. I think we lost a few fence panels and dustbins and some other stuff was overturned but nothing too major.