Right now, we are in the middle of a storm here in the UK, Storm Eunice, sweeping in right after her little brother, Storm Dudley.
Thinking about the storm made me realise that I have never lived through a real storm, like the ones you hear about on the news or see depicted in films. I know about serious storms in the UK that have hit places I know but never when I was actually there.
The Duns whirlwind, 1970
I grew up in a small town in Scotland. The housing estate I lived on had once been a caravan park and campsite. I heard stories from my grandparents about the tornado that swept through there one summer evening, 2 years before I was born.
The Great Storm of 1987
My wife was born in London and remembers the aftermath of the violent cyclone that hit the south of England, causing 18 fatalities and £2 billion of damage. I was safely at home in Scotland, unaffected. She remembers fallen trees piled high on her school’s playing field.
The Lewes floods of 2000
We bought our house near Lewes in 2003, several years after the worst flood to hit the area, causing 600 homes to be evacuated. Properties for sale bore evidence of the flood with “newly fitted” kitchens and to this day you can see flood marks on the walls of buildings.
What do all these weather events have in common? I wasn’t there!