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Powerless
It may be that Perth has had the hottest, driest summer on record with barely 0.2 centimetres of rain gracing the gauges since last November, but it is no longer. It may be a West Australian thing, but when the drought broke on Monday this week the heavens seemed determined to make a point. Lightening, thunder, wind and hail like nothing else. The road outside Marty’s work turned into a torrent of water and debris, and no-one was leaving the building, all were glued by the windows watching the carnage unfold outside. The hail sounded like gunfire going off as it crashed against the windows and then blanketed the lawns, lightening danced over the city in seemingly dozens of places at once and the rain was horizontal, Wellington-style.
Marty’s colleague Kate suffered the consequence of using his parking bay; her car left with what resembled acne scars over its entire body. Literally hundreds of pock marks were indented on every panel showing that a thin metal car body is no match for the fury of hail stones literally an inch each in diameter. One car dealer alone had 300 cars damaged by hail; ninety with windows shattered giving a clear indication of just what a show of force it was.
There was little comfort in the sanctuary of home, power was cut to 150,000 houses, ours included, so it was Marty and Pokie the dog, alone in the dark, staring at the walls and taking consolation from a single torch and a brace of laptop computers, each with an I-Tunes library. This was roughing it, sufficient for a call up to the next television series of The Ultimate Survivor. (Power was restored some 25 hours later, the next evening, after Marty had taken the sacrificial decision to eat all of the ice-cream in the freezer before it spoiled).
Great stories emerge from adversity; a clear favourite is that of the Perth traffic warden who ticketed a number of cars parked on the street in breach of some regulation or another. It appears that these cars had been rescued from a flooded underground park and left in safety, kerbside on dry land. When interviewed on television the parking warden showed no mercy. How was he to know that these cars had been rescued from possible drowning? In that inimitable Australian way, the reporter suggested that even Blind Freddy could tell these were unusual times.
And there is no doubt that every cloud has a silver lining. The Tree Man of Thornlie now has proof that his tree is safe after withstanding the full fury of the storm. Intoxicated by the moment, the Tree Man told media that he had been hit by lightening, but later downgraded the story to just having gotten a tickle-up. In the cold light of day, Mr Pennicuik admitted to having gotten carried away with the moment and what was just a supercharged atmosphere had become a full-blown lightening strike. That said, he remained up his tree throughout, protected by a paint-ball helmet and layers of clothing and blankets. After all of that, he is entitled to a bit of exaggeration.
In keeping with the modern phenomenon of social networking, there is already a Facebook page; I survived the great storm of Perth. With 43,000 members just thirty six hours after the event, it carries news and hundreds of accounts, 2,500 photos and 133 video clips of “Frank”, as this storm has now been dubbed. Readers can even buy their own official survival shirts.
Also in keeping with modern technology, one local television station news showed clips sent in by viewers rather than using its own footage to illustrate the drama of the day. Mind, the television camera operators shouldn’t be too worried about becoming redundant as a result, the quality of most of the footage probably won’t threaten their jobs.
Frank has been described as a once in fifty year storm, which goes to show that everything can be shown to be biggest and best (or worst), particularly so after a climatic record summer. The damage bill is set to top $100 million and the State Premier has declaring the day a natural disaster.
Elsewhere in another event of apparent fury, traumatised students at a primary school were offered counselling after two mothers were involved in a “bloody brawl” in the playground. The West Australian reports that the two women, who went to the school to collect their children, became involved in an argument which then escalated into a fight. They fought for several minutes in front of around forty children before being pulled apart by the school’s caretaker.
This is still a wonderful country.