The Great Storm of 1987

On my way from Aberdeen to Yarmouth for a meeting. Flight gave up at East Midlands, so hired a car and carried on. Articulated lorries on their sides all over the place.
Lots of bonus points for being the only one from Aberdeen who made it!

(then a long drive back home...)
 
Please disregard this I think it was in 1989 -
Working on a farm at Claigan on the Isle of Skye. Set off home early on my Honda CG125.Had to lean significantly into the wind to stop being blown over. Conifers being blown down as I went past Dunvegan Castle. When we let the dogs out for their bedtime pee Ben (Irish Setter) got spooked and ran off. Interesting slog to find him as he couldn't hear or see us even with torches.

The highest non-mountainous wind gust was set in February 1989 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, at 142mph (229km/h).
 
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DesperadoDan said:
I slept through it. Well, I was 17. Where were you?
The Great Storm of 1987
www.weatherandradar.co.uk

On this day... The Great Storm of 1987

On October 15th and 16th, 38 years ago, one of the worst storms in history struck the United Kingdom.
www.weatherandradar.co.uk www.weatherandradar.co.uk
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I woke up at 6 with my alarm, got up to turn on the radio and found it wasn't working. Tried to turn the lights on, found they weren't working, so went to my parents bedroom, knocked on the door and said "I think we have a power cut". I was 14.

They had been awake all night, and had seen the entire sky light up when a substation went down.

It was in Tonbridge, Kent.
 
I remember it but my local memories of trees down etc my not have been that storm. Must of not been as severe around here in NE England. Certainly experienced more trees down & days with out power a couple years back.

Checked my pictures & I was backpacking up Crossfell 16-18 October 1987

Pitch on 17th below Little Dun Fell - ironically my tent is a Hurricane! The pic shows 2 Hurricanes, 2 Phreerangers & Wilson 400

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I remember flying from Edinburgh to London a few days afterwards. The country looked flattened. Millions of trees lying in the fields. It was like watching matchstick dominos (if there is such a thing).
 
I was living in Bristol where it all seemed a bit of a storm in a T cup. Quite disappointing really. I later met someone who had been camping on Dartmoor that night, tent flattened he wrapped himself up in the wreckage and prayed till things calmed down enough to walk out, he said the first person he met asked him how he had fared in the storm- his reply " that was a storm? I thought it was the end of the world !"
 
old-skool-lite said:
I remember it but my local memories of trees down etc my not have been that storm. Must of not been as severe around here in NE England. Certainly experienced more trees down & days with out power a couple years back.

Checked my pictures & I was backpacking up Crossfell 16-18 October 1987

Pitch on 17th below Little Dun Fell - ironically my tent is a Hurricane! The pic shows 2 Hurricanes, 2 Phreerangers & Wilson 400

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You might have bumped into a colleague of mine who was doing the Pennine Way N-S and was about there. He remembers a local telling him that it was going to be "clarty". And that he felt very strong wind through the drystone wall.
 
I was at an exposed summit camp in a new tent I'd just received gratis from a foreign company needing publicity. As it was the first time I'd taken the tent from its bag (unboxings are so much cooler at site), I hadn't much of a clue about how to pitch it, but that didn't stop me from blaming the tent when it shredded under the impact of the forecasted hoolie. "This is not meant to happen to a bomber tent" wailed I to the four winds, but to no avail as any suitable audience had sensibly avoided going out, and nobody had invented YouTube yet.

Nobody had invented PLBs either, so hypothermia was quick to claim me. As my spirit soared ever upward, Heavenly Voices manifested: "What shall we do with this idiot?" asked the first ministering angel. "Hell is too good for him" replied the Holy One, "He is to be reincarnated as one who must perpetually trudge up the same old Derbyshire hillside with a tent, then another tent, then yet another tent, ad infinitum, each time babbling incoherent camping nonsense which he will share with many thousands, earning him the status of National Joke..."
 
dovidola said:
I was at an exposed summit camp in a new tent I'd just received gratis from a foreign company needing publicity. As it was the first time I'd taken the tent from its bag (unboxings are so much cooler at site), I hadn't much of a clue about how to pitch it, but that didn't stop me from blaming the tent when it shredded under the impact of the forecasted hoolie. "This is not meant to happen to a bomber tent" wailed I to the four winds, but to no avail as any suitable audience had sensibly avoided going out, and nobody had invented YouTube yet.

Nobody had invented PLBs either, so hypothermia was quick to claim me. As my spirit soared ever upward, Heavenly Voices manifested: "What shall we do with this idiot?" asked the first ministering angel. "Hell is too good for him" replied the Holy One, "He is to be reincarnated as one who must perpetually trudge up the same old Derbyshire hillside with a tent, then another tent, then yet another tent, ad infinitum, each time babbling incoherent camping nonsense which he will share with many thousands, earning him the status of National Joke..."
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What do you think about cooking steak in your camps?
 
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