"Graham Easterling" wrote in message
...
The situation became really severe in Penzance, and in fact much of S
Cornwall this evening. It is now generally excepted that the sea was
larger,
and the flooding worse, than in the 1962 Good Friday storm, the last time
SE
facing parts of Cornwall saw considerable damage. (The 1987 storm which
was
so severe at Porthleven was SW). The sea seems to have reached levels
never
seen before. Certainly, it was up to a normal high tide level 3 hours
before
high tide. The very low pressure and associated gale obviously created a
huge surge. I have never seen seas remotely like it in Mounts Bay. The
Penzance harbour car park, together with all the cars, was under water
hour before high tide.

Just to summarise:-

Part of Penzance sea wall has been washed away, causing extensive flooding
of properties behind.
All roads into Penzance have been closed to all but emergency vehicles
The main railway line is way under the sea.

People in Newlyn have been evacuated, and are spending the night housed by
Penwith Council
There are reports that Lamorna sea wall has been washed away (it's
hundreds
of years old).
There is flooding in Mousehole, where the winter baulks are not yet in
place.

The list goes on & on.

3 Photos, taken this afternoon, are at
www.easterling.freeserve.co.uk/storm.html.html. The situation got a lot
worse an hour later.
To give an idea of scale, the top of the church tower is 200 feet above
sea
level, and waves hitting the prom were going over the top.

The damage bill is going to be massive. At least we'll get a new sea wall.
This one was largely rebuilt after the 1962 storm.

Graham
Penzance

Holiday Cottage www.easterling.freeserve.co.uk
Penzance Weather www.easterling.freeserve.co.uk/weather.html



Amazing pictures. Looks like you took a bit of a risk there. One or two of
those pictures are of newspaper quality. You deserve to have those published
in the newspapers:-)

I hope that you and others there are OK. Nothing worse than being flooded.
Thinking of you here in East Anglia apart from a fresh easterly that is
all we have.
As I noted this morning. That uniform cover of cirrostratus was scary. As
you know, all of us on this ng knows what that means.
Well done to all those who forecast this as it was accurately forecast.

Regards, Gavin.