Damage reports as a result of Tuesday night's vicious storm are coming in from a few sources. The rain lasted pretty much all night, but an unbelievably fierce storm blasted local towns for about 10 minutes. Lightning is pretty rare in the Garden Route, but this storm seemed to make up for lost time. Most lightning savvy people (who obviously most come from up north) unplugged all electrical appliances, but we had calls that appeared to be ADSL routers popped and a few reports of decoders plus televisions. For those who don't know, most insurance companies ceased processing electrical damage claims when the blackouts started for obvious reasons.
The George Herald site has a brief report about the storm (link), but the article doesn't really describe the ferocity of the storm. As an ex Jo'burger, where thunder storms are a pretty regular occurrence, this particular storm had me a bit concerned that the tall trees in our yard, close to the house as well as our roof, would not cope. Thankfully, the storm only lasted for a few minutes. I have no doubt others were not as lucky.
To those unfamiliar with thunder and lighting in our area. Unplug all electrical appliances from the wall socket. Switching off is not safe enough in some cases. In my experience, assumption has been made that surge damage in our area is rare. This assumption is probably due to the past weather patterns, which obviously lacked any real lightning storms. In general, wind would do a lot more damage than lightning. In the last 10 years this has certainly changed.
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Business & Travel Guide to Garden Route South Africa
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