I was just watching the weather channel and they were showing clips of people that could hardly stand in the wind in London, they also showed various other pictrures of damage around the UK and parts of Europe. How bad was it? Hope everyone is OK!

How bad was it? Hope everyone is OK!

It's the worst storm I've ever been in, but then I was still living up north when the great storm of 1987 struck southern England. Seven people died this weekend across England and Wales, all hit by falling trees or other debris. Even in central Cambridge there are houses missing slates, and trees missing branches, round every corner. The BBC have more details.

On the other hand, Force 8 winds make it still pretty minor compared to the sort of stuff that goes on in a Gulf of Mexico hurricane season.

Peter

I'm right in the South of England - was very windy but we live in a slight valley so the Westerly winds went over us. I pulled some dead branches off a tree near my car the day before so I was ok there.

The roof came off my uncles shed overnight so I went to his house (5 miles away) with my dad at 7am - we came back an hour later and a tree had come down on the road we had just came through! It was near my house so I nipped back and took some photos after calling the police.

I sent them to the local paper but the main thing they reported on was the parking shunt between the Pride of Portsmouth and HMS St Albans.

I remember the "Great Storm" of '87 - our power was off for three days! One of the lime trees in my nan's field which came down then was cut up a few years ago by a local sculptor - he used it for crests and coronets (crowns) in Windsor Castle. Baroness Thatcher was one of them IIRC.

Gareth

I remember trying to deliver newspapers during the storm of '87 - I realised just how bad it was when a gust of wind pushed my bike and me backwards, despite my best efforts to pedal forwards. I decided that walking was a much safer option...

Travelled up from Edinburgh to Orkney last Thursday/Friday and it was kind of fun. Blizzard conditions through the Highlands (well only through Drumochter Pass really) and a force 7 rising to force 9 just in time for the lovely 2 hour ferry crossing.

Pretty wet on the way back down on Sunday, and again about a force 9 for the early part of the journey.

Not that bad really, considering most winters we can expect force 11 or 12 at least once in Orkney. (Admittedly our force 12's aren't hurricanes - No spinning involved, just very fast wind. And it never causes any damage because we don't have tall trees, or double decker buses, or wooden houses etc etc etc)

In fact, when I was a kid I remember being on my swing in a wind of 110 mph (measured about 80 yds from my house) and it was just normal. The only reason it is pretty funny is that at the time my swing was a telegraph pole with two 40ft ropes hanging from it, and I was damn near horizontal. Still have the photo somewhere.

Where was I going with that ramble? Oh yeah, wind - as long as it ain't a hurricane, and it's usual, it's not a problem. It's only where it is extraordinary that we have major issues.

Living in New Orleans, LA, I get hurricanes fairly regularly. Believe me, when a hurricane comes, it's usually not the wind that's a problem, it's the massive amounts of rain that usually does the most damage to people and property. Granted, a category 4-5 hurricane can do some damge with pure wind, but I've never been in a real BAD one. What DOES scare me is tornadoes. With those, there is usually little warning and the force is much more violent. They don't hurt the insurance companies as much, since the damage isn't nearly on the scale of a hurricane, but to the individuals involved, it can be much worse. A couple of times I've been through the eye of a hurricane. It is really something to be seen. One minute, the trees are bending all the way to the left, then the sun comes out, everything's calm, the birds are flying around, then 10 minutes later you're hit again, only the trees are bending to the right. It's just odd knowing you're standing outside in the very center of a massive vortex and everything seems so incredibly calm.

of course this does raise the big question.
In europe, most houses are made of stone/rock/brick etc with tile/slate roofs and the weather is just wet, maybe the occastional storm.

In the US, hurricanes are the seasonal norm, tornados are commonplace. In the south it gets really hot, in the north it get really cold.
And what are the houses made of? flimsy wood with 2x4 walls, laughable thermal insulation standards and scary (low) wind shear requirements.

WHY?

In europe, most houses are made of stone/rock/brick etc with tile/slate roofs and the weather is just wet, maybe the occastional storm.

Many Cambridge pavements at the moment provide evidence that slate roofs are not the way to go in windy parts of the world...

Peter

And what are the houses made of?

We've sort of had this discussion in another thread, in which, with all due respect to its author's other fine contributions to this board, the remark "brick walls don't hold up too well in building-type applications" is possibly one of the daftest things I've ever read.

Peter

I've always wanted to witness what its like to be in the eye of a hurricane... Then again, I've always wanted to chase a supercell around Kansas...

Yes, the storm surge and flooding is usually the main killer and damage inflictor in hurricanes... usually most of the wind damage occurs right along the coast. Well... hmm, then again, look at Homestead, FLA in 1992 Andrew. It looked like a fat f5 tornado went through there.

Stateside, around the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, we have N'or Easters to deal with, many times the winds (along the coast) and pressures associated with these approach hurricane force. But when I read about the storm in Europe, I found that to be quite extreme and worth pointing out. I remember an ice storm here a few years ago that knocked out power to around 300,000 people around Baltimore, which is very high. Usually summer storms may black out only around 30,000 customers tops, by comparison. Fortunately, my dad designed and built our house, so it isn't cheap 2x4 construction. Timber frame - very solid construction and very quiet during storms.

Could someone describe the "Force" designation... we don't use that here in the States and I'm just curious. We have distinctions for our hurricanes (Saffir-Simpson scale Category 1-5) and the Fujita 1-5 tornado rating but thats all I can think of now for anything wind related...

Ppffftt!

I'd like to qualify that with the fact that in the US, at least in my area, brick means these hardened red clay things that are about 2" by 2" by 8". A wall large enough for a house made solely from them (even with some mortar holding them together ) would not stand. The vast majority of ``brick'' houses in the US are still stick-frame houses with a brick facade tied to them.

So my statement was meant to indicate that the type of brick walls/facades you see in the US could not possibly hold up without some sort of underlying structure. You can attribute the fact that it did not come off that way solely with my complete lack of knowledge of British building methods.

Of course, if you folks over in the UK are making buildings solely out of these sorts of bricks (one would assume by extending their depth by some sort of three-dimensional bond), I stand hugely corrected.

Could someone describe the "Force" designation...


The classical
and the modern.

/Michael

Could someone describe the "Force" designation...


It's the Beaufort Scale

It's the Beaufort Scale

Which (classically) only goes up to 12 -- category 1-5 hurricanes are different severities of Force 12.

Peter

Bitt, you are quite correct, my house here (TX) is rock faced wood frame. Whereas my old house in England was brick outside, block inside, all tied together with steel links and insulation in between totalling aroung 12-14 inches thick. The dry wall is usually stuck to the inside block.
It has to be strong to support the weight of all that tile on the roof!

The actual contruction is the big difference, the US facing is not designed to be load bearing whereas the european version is. That is the main reason why no-one builds european style in the US, the skillbase does not exist for structural brickwork so the cost would be very scary.

Much like in England, where building wooden houses is extremely rare so there are very few builders with the skill to do it. Which also means that most english mortgage companies will usually refuse to give you a mortage on a wooden home.

I think my point was really aimed at areas like Kansas and the rest of tornado alley where entire subdivisions are wiped clean only to be rebuilt the same way.

But if you really want a structure that is proven tornado/hurricane proof, check out www.monolithic.com

I can only shudder to think of running wire though a totally brick house. Or taking a wall out for that matter.

The 2 major hurricanes I've been through are Lily and Andrew. Being 2 hours west of New Orleans and above sea level, flooding isn't much of a problem here but the wind is. You should have seen all of the uprooted trees and the houses they crushed when Lily hit a few weeks ago. And I think the wind only got up to about 110 over here. My uncle told me that a 155+ mph category 5 'cane would level houses. The storm surge has got to be the killer on the coast though.

Tornadoes certainly are some scary beasts. I've still never seen one but I've always wanted to (at a safe distance). Didn't they have a few the other night in St Landry?

Well, it's really easy. We generally don't run cables, or take entire walls out.

I can only shudder to think of running wire though a totally brick house. Or taking a wall out for that matter.

Especially in modern houses, interior non-loadbearing walls are often timber-and-plasterboard. Running wire to locations on exterior or loadbearing walls usually means chiselling a channel into the plaster, burying the cable in a narrow plastic conduit, and replastering over the top with wet plaster. You run the cable straight up or straight down the wall, because below the floorboards or above the ceiling you can run it where you like.

Taking out an internal loadbearing wall (as was done in my house) involves bridging the gap with an RSJ (Rolled Steel Joist i.e. great big girder). This is not a DIY job but is a very common thing to have done.

Peter

Everyone say after me - home wireless networking

Although I'm currently cabling from my computer room to the living room - ethernet, serial and phone line - so I can just leave my empeg docked next to my amp in the living room and not need to worry about moving it upstairs for uploads etc.

But I bet even wireless would be a pain with all that stonework around.

Yes they did have some in Landy, and Lily created one about 300 yards from my house!

As to the reason we build houses out of sticks instead of bricks, my guess is that it is probably the same reason the Japanese build their paper houses for so long; When a major storm DOES inevitably come, it's much safer to be in a lighter house thet crumbles rather than a really heavy one, plus it's loads cheaper to rebuild, So that in the long run it actually turns out to be cheaper. Plus the fact that if you built a solid brick structure here in New Orleans, You'd be up to your ankles in swamp before the roof was on, it'd sink so fast.

Mason

Nope - even though we are regulated to 100mW in the UK for 802.11, given a decent gain on the reciever the range you can get out of these things, even through stone is amazing.

I once performed a test for Blackpool airport where I had an 11Mb DS box in a metal security cage in an aircraft hangar. I could still get a useful signal (albeit at 1Mb) from the far end of the runway about 1 km away.

As I used to field test rf environments, I found some interesting things that 2.4GHz signals are badly affected by, the worst ones being cat food and cardboard packaging.

In the open, 2 km line of sight was easy - even got a 6km signal with a clever receive antenna once - but trees stuff your signal up pretty badly.

Tell me about it: Wireless networks, essential if you've got 3 foot thick walls like me. I got a returned Anypoint network, fully knowing it was crap, which was going begging in a throw out sale.

I can transfer the average MP3 in the time it takes to listen to Wagner's ring cycle. Which suits me fine, as it only has to transfer about 2 hours worth of MP3 each way, a week and I can set it going when I go to bed.

Why the heck hadn't anyone thought of suspended ceilings in regency times, didn't they know the PC was coming?

Oh yeah, take a look at this picture. It's of lily, off an oil-rig in the gulf.

Fits your tagline, too.

Oh yeah, take a look at this picture. It's of lily, off an oil-rig in the gulf.

That is a great pic! I've nearly been hit by one of those pesky things before, but not by three!

That is a great shot. Those guys are crazy staying on that rig.

I remember the Decmber 1999 in Europe when here in France Wind was 150 kilometer per Hour ....

Many forests and trees have suffered of this event ....

Locally Sunday's Wind was not as big as Dec 1999, but was even 25 knots I measured to practive BuggyKite ( :-)))) )

25 knots

A mere breeze! In Cambridge it averaged over 30 knots for a whole hour on Sunday morning, and was gusting to 74 knots.

Peter

Absolute dolts. There is NO WAY I'd be out there.

Those guys are crazy staying on that rig.

Really? I'd rather be on the rig than on a boat if a tornado hit me.

Although moving indoors is preferred

Woah, 64 knots is the limit for the Beaufort scale ...


In the description of the scale a man said :

'Children under 12 yo are flying ..... '

While we're on the topic of tornados... Here is a pic of the tornado that hit La Plata, MD earlier this year. This picture is taken from Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant - thats how close the tornado got to the plant. This tornado basically wiped out the town of La Plata as a strong F4 tornado. I believe F4 and F5 tornados (the strongest) account for less than 1 percent of all tornados in the US in any given year.

Yeah, you're right, but I'd much rather be 50 miles inland.

What? And miss out on the latest adrenalin sport "Tornado Surfing"?