Windstorm 1st Aug 08

I'd just settled into my usual Friday night activity of watching the footy on Tv with a bourbon in hand when the wind started. It'd been predicted all day but typical of the bureau their timing was way off. Well, it blew and blew and eventually the pager started going off with peoples 'request for assistance'. The wind was gusting so bad that at times you could feel the whole house shudder.

We later heard that gusts were recorded of 109km/hr.

At SES it quickly became evident that we had a major operation on our hands. We asked for as many members as possible to respond. Calls were flooding in, way faster than anyone could handle. The wind was relentless and the damage was widespread with a number of houses loosing roofs, there were countless trees down along with the minor jobs.

Saturday morning I called it quits at 3.00am, but by 4.00pm I was heading back to SES for my next shift. The tally of jobs had grown to 291, big by any standard but not our worst. We had SES teams from all over Sydney assisting us. By the end of my shift (1.00am) we had only 57 outstanding jobs.

Today the operation continues, hopefully it'll all be complete this afternoon but thats for someone else to woory about. I'm having a day off.