On 04/12/2013 21:31, Joe Egginton wrote:
So it's "Be prepared" for strong winds tomorrow. None of us can change
the weather. Heaven help if it goes up to Meto's Defcon 1 "TAKE
ACTION!". Does the MetO expect people to have a day off, and reinforce
fence panels, climb onto the roof, to secure chimneys from collapsing,
or maybe shore up large trees from falling down?

There have already been serious road traffic accidents up here caused by
people driving too fast in extremely challenging conditions where a gust
of wind can move a car over by half a lane or more - especially on the
exposed bridges. It won't take much more to cut our village off since
there are roadside trees still in leaf and now swaying violently.

People do stupid things in bad weather. The MetO are right to have
issued a warning. Securing and tying down anything that might blow away
or compromise a structure is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

There is debris flying around outside and the lights have been
flickering. I have a Thermos ready but for now we still have mains.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown