Diego and I lived through Hurricane Juan in 2003, a category 2 hurricane that made landfall in Prospect, NS which is around 50 km away from Halifax and the city was devastated! Diego and I actually slept though Juan and awoke to the state of emergency that ensued, so this time we actually got to watch the storm until it subsided around 3 pm. Juan really devastated the trees in Halifax and we lost power for 10 days!
These two photos were taken just around the corner from our house!
This is the popular Public Gardens in the heart of Halifax, it was closed for months.
We brought in most of the plants and what we left out we tied down with the furniture.
This is the beginning of the storm.We had ample propane for the BBQ and gasoline for the car and generator....yes we bought a generator...for our corals! We have hundreds of dollars worth of corals in our large kitchen tank and we were not about to loose it all...that and we also have a sump pump that we would like to power to keep the basement from flooding...We also had lots of candles (and battery operated fire alarms) and flashlights. The storm howled and we jumped with every bang but after a couple hours we decided it was high time to do something fun as a distraction...
So out came Lord of the Rings RISK and the large bottle of red wine we had been saving and the battle for Middle Earth began.
Four glasses of wine and a knock on the door later, we were out to survey the damage with a neighbour. The top of one of our trees broke off and was (and still is) dangling up high in the tree. We will have to hire someone to come in to deal with it and trim our tree back in preparation for the next one! Many other branches also broke off and we helped the neighbour clear it out.
Luckily, there was no damage caused by our trees...but our other neighbours weren't so lucky...at least it was their own tree so there won't be any neighbourhood rifts.
All in all it was a mild one compared to 2003...but it is just the beginning of the hurricane season...with the waters off our coast warming and our climate changing we are bound to have a few more doozies, if not this year...perhaps next. Our running joke is that every year from now on will be the worst year for hurricanes on record...lets hope we are wrong!
So out came Lord of the Rings RISK and the large bottle of red wine we had been saving and the battle for Middle Earth began.
Four glasses of wine and a knock on the door later, we were out to survey the damage with a neighbour. The top of one of our trees broke off and was (and still is) dangling up high in the tree. We will have to hire someone to come in to deal with it and trim our tree back in preparation for the next one! Many other branches also broke off and we helped the neighbour clear it out.
Luckily, there was no damage caused by our trees...but our other neighbours weren't so lucky...at least it was their own tree so there won't be any neighbourhood rifts.
All in all it was a mild one compared to 2003...but it is just the beginning of the hurricane season...with the waters off our coast warming and our climate changing we are bound to have a few more doozies, if not this year...perhaps next. Our running joke is that every year from now on will be the worst year for hurricanes on record...lets hope we are wrong!
