The Storm

Most of the borough of Medway is just sufficiently inland to have avoided most if not all of storm Xaver's effects. A few places in Rochester (Esplanade area) and Strood (Canal Road and Knights Road areas, and inland a distance from there) were evacuated, and flooding was reported before the waters receded during Friday morning.

I stayed up through much of the first night, monitoring the situation, using social media to disseminate useful information and contact details, and filtering out unnecessary material, so that it was as lean yet valuable as I could make it, without worrying people unnecessarily with blow-by-blow accounts such as those from more coastal areas that didn't apply to us here in Medway. I think (and hope) that was the best approach...

Our biggest issue was the extremely powerful wind, which made it difficult to stang up. even hours before it was all due to kick-off in earnest. I was surprised when returning from a shopping trip much earlier in the day, just how much the wind had built up during the half-hour I was indoors in the Pentagon Centre.

This short news video gives an admittedly all too brief taste of what happened in various parts of Europe and the east coast of Britain, but is still useful to gain an idea of what it was like – nowhere near as bad as some extreme weather we have seen around the globe in recent years, but bad enough nonetheless...