Our Own Tornado

How fortunate we are in Australia to be free of war, famine, earthquakes, and other man-made and nature-induced calamities.
Any dramas that come our way are not of the same magnitude as wars, but on Christmas Night our neighbourhood was in the middle of a tornado; a tornado unprecedented in ‘our neck of the woods’.
The wind around our house reached 200+ kilometres an hour. Huge gum trees over the back fence crashed to the ground or lost large limbs. Our rear fence, in a row of four, was the only one left standing (minus a gate).
In the terrifying wind and driving rain, a woman climbed out of her car nearby to check if she could continue driving past a fallen tree branch, only to be struck by the rest of the tree as it fell.
Tragically, she died.

Sheltering in our home, we watched as the shade sail that sheltered our driveway was ripped from its anchoring, ending up over the neighbours’ fence.
Palm trees that surrounded our pool bent almost double, some ending up lying on the ground. Branches from one of our trees went flying and two (metal) gates were ripped from hinges.
Roof tiles changed position and leaves and debris was flung against windows…and into the swimming pool.

All electric power turned off as over a thousand powerlines in our area broke and fell.
By candlelight, we watched the outside world blow apart as lightning bolt, after lightning bolt lit not only the sky, but the whole surroundings.
It was four days before power was restored to our house.
We have a small (single) gas burner on which we boiled water in a saucepan to make a cup of tea.

Insurance assessors will come on Monday to check the damage. Fortunately for us, they sent repairers within two days to make the roof safe and to cart off the now torn and ‘relocated’ shade sail.

On the afternoon of the morning our electricity was restored, we welcomed seven guests from Interstate and overseas.
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I’m resting now.