It all started on Sunday night. By about 8pm it was blowing a fair hoolie, the wind whistling round the house. We latched the shutters and made sure the doors were bolted before going to bed that evening.
At around midnight the rain started, and inevitably the electricity went off. It always does when we have a bit of a shower.
By 2am the distant thunder was rolling and the lightning flashing. Our bedroom is in the loft and we have roof windows - we didn't need any electricity to keep the place bright, the lightning flashes were coming every one or 2 seconds for much of the night, and the constant rolling thunder was vie-ing for ear-space with the torrential rain and gale force winds.
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| Effects of torrential rain and wind on an old stone wall. |
The storm suddenly started moving at a huge speed, and at 4.30am our windows were rattling and the very walls of the house shook as the thunder crashed immediately overhead. It was at about the same time that our neighbour's roof came off... Cartwheeling across our roof and crashing down through our other neighbours roof, ending up in their (luckily spare) bedroom. We have a tiled roof, but both our immediate neighbours have corrugated cement board ones, which are widely found on older Corfiot village houses and are an inexpensive but normally strong alternative to tiles. These boards were roughly 3ft x 5ft and are surprisingly heavy.
At the time we were blissfully unaware of the devastation going on on both sides, being too involved in finding buckets and towels to mop up the rain that seemed to be permeating the tiniest of spaces, dripping in through the rooflights, somba and balcony roof. We had heard the huge racket, but put it down to the overhead thunder, not realising that the cacophony of sound had more than one source.
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| Not a hedge, a fallen Cypress Pine! |
Monday morning the village looked like a bomb had hit it! Detritus littered the roads and most properties seemed to have suffered some damage. Missing tiles, chimneys down, a couple of places had single glazed windows that were blown in, and one nearby house even lost a back door that was blown off it's hinges!
Many small trees and two huge ones had been uprooted, a Cypress pine that had managed to fall twix wall and bell tower of our 18th century church - a metre or two either way and it would have caused untold damage. A massive Eucalyptus tree had engulfed much of the village platia, managing to squash a wrought iron bench as it fell.
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| Proof that wood can be stronger than iron! |
But were the residents all indoors frantically dialling their insurers to put in claims for storm damage? No. Most of them were out in the street laughing ruefully, swapping notes about damage caused and liaising with the local tradesmen to make good the damage.
By the time I got out of the house my neighbour Vaso, whose roof had lifted, had organised Stamatis, Stathis and Rikos to repair her roof and make good our own whilst they were up there. Thanasis and Vasilist turned up minutes later to replace Gregoris' shattered panels, and Tony meanwhile was replacing a stench pipe that had been sideswiped by a falling chimney at another house in the village.
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| All that was left of Vaso's roof panels |
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| Full sized cement board roof panels |
The hum of chainsaws buzzed around the village, as fallen trees were turned into manageable chunks. Ladders were dusted off and new tiles delivered with unusual speed to ensure that properties were made watertight before the next storm, forecast for later the same day.
Monday night we had a diluted version of the Sunday night storm. Winds remained strong and we did again have rumbles of thunder and crashes of lightning for an hour or two. But this was much more reminiscent of our normal winter storms that whilst quite spectacular and awe inspiring unless you're used to them, pale into insignificance when compared to The Storm of Sunday 7th November.
What did take a bit longer was the resumption of mains services. We eventually got our electricity back late on Tuesday morning, and the water was flowing from the taps again a three or four hours after that. Properties closer to Corfu Town had power back within 24 hours, but some villages waited for nearly 2 full days for their supply to be restored.
The 'tired' bit of this title is fairly self explanatory in the circumstances; and the 'confused' bit was exactly the right description of how I felt after having everything that we take for granted at the flick of a switch or turn of a tap taken away from us for a relatively prolonged period. Quite simply, remove these services and life has to change completely. If you're not used to it it can indeed be very confusing!
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| Plenty of drinking water from the village spring. |
When power was eventually restored I certainly felt relieved, but strangely it was mainly because I hated the idea of hand washing everything, forever, and because I was concerned about my work, which is completely reliant on internet access. Other than that there was little I really missed. Reading by oil lamp in front of a roaring fire was wonderful, and boiling a pan of water rather than switching on the kettle is no great hardship.
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| Just right for reading by! Taken by Niamh |
The word on the island is that Sunday night's storm was the worst recorded, the worst in living memory and that it was a hurricane. How true this is I don't know, but it was certainly extreme. However, dealing with the effects of a storm, Corfu style, is an experience I'm richer for having had, although I sincerely hope that it was a one off, and not something that will be repeated in the foreseeable future!
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