Mini tornado hits us!

[Kateloustear]

In the early hours of Tuesday morning our tiny village took the full force of a mini tornado. The storm started the night before at around 11.30pm and slowly grew to a crescendo at 4.30am when the sky just threw massive hailstones, the size of golfballs down onto us!!!! My 7 yr old daughter who normally sleeps through anything, woke up frightend and when I went into her bedroom we heard the most ferocious noise and we seriously thought we'd been hit or the chimney was crumbling. I was petrified of bolting across to the telephone for fear of the ceiling coming down so I grabbed my daughter and we flew to the top of the stairs when the electricity went off! We fudged around looking for the torch and finally got downstairs to two very subdued dogs. By now the noise was incredible and instead of being brave, panic set in and I turned into a real girlie!! (I must add that hubby away working!). I phoned some English friends who live 10 mins from us who said they would drive over to fetch us. By now water was dripping through our lights in the breakfast room and the window had blown open, all this in the pitch black - thoughts of a horror film spring to mind!

Our friends finally arrived half an hour later as the roads were so bad they couldn't drive very fast. They took us to their house where we waited until daylight. I was very nervous about going back home and establishing what damage had actually been done. However our house was still in tact as was the roof and the chimney. It wasn't until our neighbours dropped by at 8.30am to see if we were okay that we discovered what the terrible noise had been - golfballs in the form of ice!!!! They live in le bourg and their restaurant had taken a real hammering. It was just like a war zone, the fireman were out, there were people out trying to help clear up the mess.

Our car has been badly damaged by these hellish hailstones and it now resembles one of those l'escargot dishes!!! Our friends think it may be a right off.

Our tiny little village even made the National news, the devastaion was so bad.

A very shaken, tired but relieved, Kate

[GRT17]

Glad to hear you are alright, what a dreadful experience.

No doubt most people have seen the pictures this week of the flooding and the torrents of water that swept through Boscastle in Cornwall, all due to exceptional rainfall and river banks bursting. Absolutely horrifying and again devastation everywhere.


There's some very freaky weather around this Summer.
Gill

[Iceni]

Dear Kate

I hope that you are recovering from your ordeal which must have been terrifying. I don't know where you are and have not read about this in the news but we have already been warned that this type of event is a one in 4 year chance in the Northern Lot.

When we took out our buildings insurance, our contact at the bank told us about these storms and said that he had witnessed one 'first hand' locally to us. He described the aftermath as looking like a 'war zone'.

Locally in Glanes they had a wind driven mini tornado a few weeks ago which took out great swathes of mature wallnut trees - the farmers are devistated as this was the future for their children.

Yes, it is a weird year for weather (let us not forget the floods in November near Cahors) and even we had a little water trouble BUT this is what we have been told repeatedly to expect. We may not all agree that Global Warming is actually happening but the problems the scientists claimed would occur if it did sure seem to be.

Di
http://www.iceni-it.co.uk