The van driver blinked in the pre-dawn darkness and leaned closer to his windscreen as the wild wind blew the roadside trees almost horizontal. He continued cautiously up the hill, vaguely aware of the lights behind him and the slowness of the oncoming traffic as those drivers also myopically peered through windscreens nervous of the flying debris and arboreal detritus that littered the road. On his way from Bexley to Hasting, he was seriously looking forward to his early morning tea - this days journey had been fraught with tension as the long predicted storm hit the south east in a fury of whipped branches and whirling leaves.
His nose almost touching the windshield now, he flinched backwards sharply as he suddenly saw more movement than even this wind should produce; his foot hit the brake pedal and he hauled the van to the left as the falling tree toppled into his path, hitting the top of the windscreen, sliding down to remove the bumper and number plate. The van crunched and lurched to a halt, as the engine stalled, the vehicle swaying as the wind buffeted the right hand panels.The Highways Agency Incident Support Unit that had been following the van pulled up behind and the three workmen quickly climbed out to check for injury.
The van driver breathed out in a shuddering sigh and clambered shakily from the cab as the Highways men joined him to survey the damage. As they went over the events in shouted conversation to carry the wind, one of the workmen started to pull the six inch thick tree trunk away from the wreckage and out of the road, another joined him while the third began to direct the traffic, but barely had they begun when a huge rending crashing sound caused them all to jump, spinning around to stare back up the hill as an eighty foot long beech bough was torn from a tree and smashed down through the surrounding smaller trees. Falling heavily onto the road and exploding like a grenade sending debris spinning into the air, the branch sliced through tree limbs, phone lines and the power line which split the power pole like a cheese cutter as it fell to earth. The four men stared in shock at the destruction just a hundred feet in front of them.
"Bugger," I said as the kitchen was plunged into darkness and the spluttering coffee machine sputtered to a halt. I saw the end of the explosion as I looked out through the window at the aftermath not twenty yards from our cottage. My wife rushed into the kitchen and together we walked out into the wildness of the wind and noise to assess any damage.
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Unbelievably our property had been entirely missed by the destruction but only by a matter of a few feet, however all our utilities, apart from water, had been cut off by the fall.
We didn't know it then but we would be without power, heating and hot water for almost ninety hours and without telephone and internet access for weeks. Tragically, two people were killed by falling trees, so our plight was minimal, if exceptionally annoying and frustrating.
In our little incident, no one was hurt, though many were inconvenienced, there was no real damage to property apart from the van and we have some more firewood to season. But the utilities companies proved to be incompetent, unhelpful and uncaring. Happy to take our money and increase prices time after time, both BT and UK Power Net were very slow to show concern, answer phone calls, or provide assistance with any show of speed.
No surprise there then.
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| More firewood... |
