The Black South-Easterly has been BLOWING like there's no tomorrow, with gale-force winds of up to 65km/h! I have never in my 1.5 years here experienced wind like we had yesterday. It's impossible to walk outside - you have to walk with your legs wide apart and body ducked low to prevent being blown away. Seriously.
We thought we'd go to the Glen and check out what the wind was doing to Camps Bay Beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and it was such an awesome sight! Took a video as well, but it's kinda low-res... if you look closely, you'll see the wind flicking the sand off the beach into the water, and further out you see mist sprays of water dancing off the ocean. It was such an awesome sight.
(Email subscribers need to download the attached link to see the youtube video)
There were some awesome sun-rays-through-the-clouds shots Kelly managed to get. (I had to hide behind a bush as I was getting blown over and we were next to a cliff. Scary Mary).
The amount of damage this wind has done is unbelievable - roofs have blown off, motorbikes and even trucks have blown over, cars have been crushed by falling debris, trees have fallen over, check out the local news report here.
(The South-East wind is also called the "Cape Doctor" coz it blows all the pollution from town out to sea).
We weren't spared either.
First of all - getting out of the car at the Glen to capture that video was probably a bad idea. As I was opening the car door (carefully with 2 hands, I might add), the wind caught it and swung the door open with such force that it now can't quite close properly. We've only just serviced the car and paid a hefty R5,000 for all the major fixing, and now have to go back 2 weeks later to get this door fixed. Bah.
Here's Kelly trying to close it, back at home:
The wind had also blown over AND dragged some garbage cans across our driveway. You'll see how far away they were dragged here:
Being the good citizen he is, Kelly hoisted them all back where they belonged.
The wind was howling all through the night, and this morning, we woke up to find water leaking through the ceiling. Since we've got a loft, part of the roof is hidden behind a trap door where all the piping and the geyser goes. Kelly stuck his head through the trap door to check and lo and behold, THERE'S A HOLE IN THE ROOF! Some roof tiles must've blown off last night.
Good thing all external structures are sorted by the Body Corporate (kinda like the Resident's Committee), and they're gonna send someone round to fix it. The problem is it's still raining in the meantime and will be until tomorrow!! I dunno how anyone's gonna be able to climb outside without getting blown off. You can't even put a pail out to catch the leaks coz they're running down the side of the walls (and staining them too), so I've got puddles of towels around the floor. The guys came to have a look and counted 28 roof tiles blew off. That's a big hole that can't be fixed till Friday, when the rain and wind finally stop.
These are the stained walls at the moment:
Our balcony's a right mess - all the chairs have collapsed and blown over.
The poor frankenstein lavender was just starting to come right again after taking a beating when the last cold front hit. It's still partially brown and green, but some flower buds were starting to grow again (check out the solo purple bud). This morning, more of its branches had ripped off AGAIN! Oh, my heavy potting soil that was tucked away in the balcony corner was also blown across to the other end of the balcony (the black trash bag in the shot above)... I dunno how that could've happened.
Kelly's motorbike was also blown over, laying against the wall.
It's been such a destructive and dismaying thing to wake up to this morning. When is Summer gonna come properly?!
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