La Tempete

i love this country we have decided to live in, but sometimes i dont understand it. We had a severe storm on saturday morning which knocked out our electricity. Numerous calls to EDF couldnt elicit any information. Finally on sunday we were told that 52000 people had lost their supply and all their teams were working on reconnecting the principal lines. We were finally reconnected 1/2 hour ago! Two freezers full of food lost and also loadsa hours working on my railway!! Its not fair is it!!!

Mikey

You need to get a generator, a friend of mine in the vendee has a 6kw one for such eventualities, mine is only 2kw but it’s not automatic. Then at least you could keep the trains running.

The main thing is, are you all right down there now?

The south west was pretty badly hit especially Landes.
I had a student who lost their whole house down there in the storms.

Is your place okay?

Sorry to hear of MikeyH's problem.

We were damned lucky just over the "border" in Charente.

Our electrics flickered a few times but stayed on - we've had previous power cuts in far less winds than those of last weekend. Ironically whilst those even slightly South and West of us were without power, after 2 1/2 years of waiting, yesterday we finally had our full 12Kw supply connected by EDF.

One casualty was our Sky dish which got blown out of alignment; dustbins blown all over the place and a few tree branches down in the field - we were so lucky. I really thought the roof was going to get blown off the donkey shelter though.

We have a kind of emergency kit here - camping gas cookers and lights, generator (left overs from our first 12 months living in a caravan) and we have log burning heating in any case - thankfully didn't need them.

I also have two 12 volt batteries on stand by for extended cuts - got to keep the railway going.

Glad everythings back to normal.

Cheers Brian

Yes its nice to be back. We didnt suffer any damage to the house but the donkeys door blew off! We hjave five rivers within walking distance and they have all burst their banks so its like living on the coast now. the good news is that the water is draining away quite quickly. The dogs are happy 'cos last night they ate all the food from the freezers that we didnt fancy (all cooked up so no prob for them!) Mixing concrete today to lay more roads for the railway

mikey

I saw the aftermath of the tremendous storm which hit the Landes regio about 10 years ago. The devastation was awful with acres and acres of trees flattened.

yes although this storm was bad it wasnt a patch on the 1999 one. the forests around here are still full of leaning,uprooted trees from that storm

mikey

Sorry to hear all this~~~~nothing much happened here in Wales just 1/2" rain last night!