It was an amazing event! Winds exceeded 90 km about 11 am and continued to build throughout the afternoon. At 1 pm we saw our weather station at the top of 80 foot rock right beside the house exceed 120 km. At 4 pm the weather station showed 160 km sustained wind and that continued for about 2 hours. Hugh was out in the full brunt of it when one of our neighbors basement was flooding. He said that he couldn't stand up and that the rain stung his face. At 8 pm, the winds receded to around 90-100 km, then stayed about 60-70 throughout the night.
The winds were blowing off the land so we had very little seas, except for the rain being whipped into a stinging driving force. No storm surges either but lots of flooding including our local hospital that had to be evacuated, and hotel and restaurants that had to close. At least one house had the roof blown off, and many reports of siding and boards blown away.
We hosted several stranded couples with meals and beds. One honeymooning couple ended up with us for 3 days waiting for roads to open.
We were very fortunate, some loose flashing on the roof that Hugh fixed the next day, and we picked up various items that had been blown around. We felt very lucky!
The next day was sunny and the winds were strong enough to deepen the ocean colour to this gorgeous blue.
