Storm

Rescue (and news) choppers standing by, originally uploaded by aupeter100.

I had yesterday off as a flex day. I knew the weather was going to be bad, but not just how bad. It was raining when I started out at about 9.30am. Got to Charlestown Square (shopping centre) OK. Did some shopping, had some breakfast. Then headed out to Belmont.

This is when the trouble started. I got stuck for about 10mins on just past Gateshead High, near Harvey Norman. There were about 3 power poles leaning over, so the road was partly closed.

Got to Belmont OK, got the fabric I went there for. Started to drive home. By the time I got to the turn off to the bypass, it was getting really heavy. Then it got scary. By the time I was about half way along the bypass, I was starting to look for somewhere to pull over. The rain was coming down so hard, I couldn't see two feet in front of me. I was doing 40km/hr in a 90km zone. There was a bike lane that I could pull over into. Just as I did, it turned into a little pull over zone. So I timed that well.

Just as I pulled over, it started to hail. By that stage, I really didn't care about the hail. All I thought was, "Well, at least if the windscreen gets smashed, at least I'm not moving!!"

I stayed there for about 10mins waiting for the rain to ease up. About 2mins after getting off the bypass, I hit some major flooding on the road at Lambton. Managed to get through that. The water was running down the hilly street so hard and deep it was creating waves, it was also going into peoples houses.

Hit another bit of flooding at the turnoff. Got through that. Also had to dodge about three stalled cars. Then as I got to Waratah Station to go to Mayfield, a bus stalled in the middle of the intersection, so I had to chuck a u-turn and go through Georgetown.

As I was driving through there, you could see foam up on the footpath were it must have been flooded earlier. Then as I was going through Tighes Hill, you couldn't tell where Throsby Creek finished and the flood in the TAFE car park started!

Mayfield also had foam and debris fields, but no standing water.

Then I did my shopping and headed home. We went down and had alook at the ship up on the beach. The photo below isn't very good, it doesn't show just how up the beach the ship is. That's why I've posted the one by someone else at the top of the post.

We were going to catch the ferry over to try and get a better look at the ship and try and get better photos but the ferries weren"t running because they've closed the harbour.

Anyway, there is damage at work. It's a long weekend so they have an extra day before they have to decide about telling people not to come to work on Tuesday.

This is the ship that run aground on Nobbys Beach yesterday. The whole area has been declared a disaster area.

Pasha Bulker On Nobbys Beach Newcastle, 9th June, 2007, originally uploaded by Jane Stockton.