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So after the red alert yesterday we went around the island checking out the damage and well...a ton of trees have fallen over. Thankfully most of the ones near houses had the decency to fall in such ways as to more or less completely miss anything of importance.
The hardest hit areas were at Drumsite (the "top" of the island), which lost the most trees in the residential areas, and the Settlement which is down at the bottom - some parts of roofs came off down there. Ironically the area which we all thought was gonna get thrashed the most (Kampong, it's right in front of the beach) was pretty much unscathed |D Got a million photos so here are a few to share!
Here's the park at Drumsite, which is gonna look super bare once they remove the fallen trees. The poor palm trees to the left of the first picture survived the swell season that took out two of their brethren last year, only to be knocked down this round of strong wind. You fought the good fight palm trees.
As well as trees, some folk's structures didn't survive the night either. This shed got completely decimated and the guy who owns the fence in the second pic also had the roof of his garage blow off (technically it was just corrugated iron on old wooden posts, but they were lucky if fell to the ground and didn't slice through a window or something).
The road leading out past the school was slightly blocked by fallen trees, and a few trees on the school oval have fallen over. This one pulled up most of the turf around its roots with it.
Nature has a weird sense of humour. At the front of the school there are two trees. One had died some time ago due to some undetermined cause. Guess which tree fell down. HINT: NOT THE DEAD ONE.
Over at the residence of one of our oldest residents; if the neighbour's tree had been a little bit taller it would have fallen through the roof of her bedroom. The next pic is of an uprooted tree at the back of my colleague's house.
Moving on down to Poon Saan (the middle)! Fallen tree near the road almost took out a sign, and one of the bus stops nicely lost its roof. I don't think we'll be watching any movies at the cinema for at least a couple of weeks too - not only did the yellow flower tree fall over (to the right of the pic, that thing was older than i am!), but part of the screen got damaged and i found three of the speakers on the floor (one had a gaping hole in it so it must've fallen). Meanwhile some corrugated iron from our old train station swings precariously from where it's come loose.
Good thing most of our power is underground cos i can see this having ended in tragedy (on a side note, there are still some wires near the cinema, and a tree did fall on one of them but the wire just bent under it like a champion soggy noodle). Over in Silver City the giant arse tree in Prickle Park somehow managed to get uprooted. There's a house over the fence behind it which it missed - see what i mean about considerate trees?
Down in Settlement the tree situation wasn't much better. The difference in damage was mostly in how some of the buildings down here actually lost parts of their roof, so sucks to be the people living/working there, although the roof guy here must be rubbing his hands together gleefully XP. The roof from the skate park peeled back like the lid of a tin of sardines (i showed my friend this photo and he was like "and my car shall be forever immortalised next to a broken roof"), and this house didn't have a considerate tree.
The worst hit was definitely the poor Rumah Tinggi (it's a restaurant)! I don't think their new roof was cyclone rated because that's what came up - either that or shoddy workmanship because the old roofing stayed down flat as a tack. They'd just been renovating too and rumour has it they've got no insurance the poor owners.
The clean up for everywhere began pretty early and the Parks, Shire and police guys were out in force doing their thing (second picture i took as we went past in the car, they're taking the light post out from underneath a tree that had fallen in Settlement). A lot of volunteers too helping to clean up places like the Rumah and the Golf Course (a number of coconut trees feel there). The dulcet tones of chainsaws echoed throughout the day |D
SIDE NOTE: This was a Category 1 cyclone so can you just imagine what would have happened had it been any higher.
The hardest hit areas were at Drumsite (the "top" of the island), which lost the most trees in the residential areas, and the Settlement which is down at the bottom - some parts of roofs came off down there. Ironically the area which we all thought was gonna get thrashed the most (Kampong, it's right in front of the beach) was pretty much unscathed |D Got a million photos so here are a few to share!
Here's the park at Drumsite, which is gonna look super bare once they remove the fallen trees. The poor palm trees to the left of the first picture survived the swell season that took out two of their brethren last year, only to be knocked down this round of strong wind. You fought the good fight palm trees.
As well as trees, some folk's structures didn't survive the night either. This shed got completely decimated and the guy who owns the fence in the second pic also had the roof of his garage blow off (technically it was just corrugated iron on old wooden posts, but they were lucky if fell to the ground and didn't slice through a window or something).
The road leading out past the school was slightly blocked by fallen trees, and a few trees on the school oval have fallen over. This one pulled up most of the turf around its roots with it.
Nature has a weird sense of humour. At the front of the school there are two trees. One had died some time ago due to some undetermined cause. Guess which tree fell down. HINT: NOT THE DEAD ONE.
Over at the residence of one of our oldest residents; if the neighbour's tree had been a little bit taller it would have fallen through the roof of her bedroom. The next pic is of an uprooted tree at the back of my colleague's house.
Moving on down to Poon Saan (the middle)! Fallen tree near the road almost took out a sign, and one of the bus stops nicely lost its roof. I don't think we'll be watching any movies at the cinema for at least a couple of weeks too - not only did the yellow flower tree fall over (to the right of the pic, that thing was older than i am!), but part of the screen got damaged and i found three of the speakers on the floor (one had a gaping hole in it so it must've fallen). Meanwhile some corrugated iron from our old train station swings precariously from where it's come loose.
Good thing most of our power is underground cos i can see this having ended in tragedy (on a side note, there are still some wires near the cinema, and a tree did fall on one of them but the wire just bent under it like a champion soggy noodle). Over in Silver City the giant arse tree in Prickle Park somehow managed to get uprooted. There's a house over the fence behind it which it missed - see what i mean about considerate trees?
Down in Settlement the tree situation wasn't much better. The difference in damage was mostly in how some of the buildings down here actually lost parts of their roof, so sucks to be the people living/working there, although the roof guy here must be rubbing his hands together gleefully XP. The roof from the skate park peeled back like the lid of a tin of sardines (i showed my friend this photo and he was like "and my car shall be forever immortalised next to a broken roof"), and this house didn't have a considerate tree.
The worst hit was definitely the poor Rumah Tinggi (it's a restaurant)! I don't think their new roof was cyclone rated because that's what came up - either that or shoddy workmanship because the old roofing stayed down flat as a tack. They'd just been renovating too and rumour has it they've got no insurance the poor owners.
The clean up for everywhere began pretty early and the Parks, Shire and police guys were out in force doing their thing (second picture i took as we went past in the car, they're taking the light post out from underneath a tree that had fallen in Settlement). A lot of volunteers too helping to clean up places like the Rumah and the Golf Course (a number of coconut trees feel there). The dulcet tones of chainsaws echoed throughout the day |D
SIDE NOTE: This was a Category 1 cyclone so can you just imagine what would have happened had it been any higher.
