OzFclass

Spare a thought for Peter Smith in far North Queensland. I just heard on the news that Category 4 Cyclone "Larry" is tracking very close to Innisfail. If you're online Peter, good luck and keep safe.

Alan

edited 19/4/06

edited 19/4/06

Good Luck guys

Hi Everyone, Peter came through OK. He copped a bit of structual damage but not severe. I took a generating set up to him on Tuesday, and we met in Cardwell, He informed me by phone, that he just managed to get back home through the rising floodwaters after convincing the boys in blue to let him through the road block. The biggest problem Peter says is the lack of power, and he is hopefull that he will have power restored by Easter, maybe? That is a long time without power! I realy feel for those people in the Innisfail area.

I have been informed that the Herberton range copped it ,and the latest report I have is that there in not much left of the infrastructure, so it might be all hands on deck, to get their range up and running again

Thanks John - it's good to hear he's still in one piece. If you see him again soon, tell him to get back online ASAP - we need his participation in the F-Open targets discussion!

Alan

wasn't someone talking about lighter winds in n qld on another post/!!!!
bruce.
p.s. i'll take our stronger southern latitude winds anyday!

OK- I am back.

Power was restored almost 2 weeks from the event.

I would have been on line much earlier but my computer got such a freight the modem played up. Was too busy doing other things for myself and others that it took a low priority.

Peter Smith

Welcome back Peter. Sounds like you folks up there have really been under the hammer with a long time before you expect to get back to normality. How did you get on personally?

Alan

How did I fare.

A few gutters partly buckled, a few cracked windows (behind very substantial cycloner shutters but the pressure still got through), and lost a lot of cheap plastic (Alsonite) roofing over a breezeway between two buildings. This I was going to replace anyway - it has passed its use by date.

Last year I replaced the roof and my construction methods are brutish - extra battens and extra screws so no problems apart from some scrapes on the roof.

My biggest problem was that I have a very strong house with a workshop under it like a dungeon so without power the place is very dark and I could not use the workshop at all.

Being on rainwater with tanks and having an old fashioned septic system and a gas stove makes for security.

But for a while I was so busy helping others there was little time to spare anyway.

I was not personally worried about my safety because of the massive strength under the house but always considered that another house could land on top of mine so could still suffer a house wipeout. As it was, I had almost no water ingress and when the place is being sprayed by the equivalent of a firehose thats not bad.

Now I have been in the eye of 4 cyclones and would gladly give away the oppertunity of experiencing more.

Peter.

Peter,

Glad to hear your "fort" survived. It will be a good investment if the climatic change gurus are correct - they are predicting a greater frequency of these extreme events.

Alan