A TYRONE man who now lives in the US was last night preparing for the worst as heavy winds and rain started to batter his home.
David Wilson was raised for 17 years in Kilskeery, a village between Omagh and Enniskillen.
Now he is the director of marketing for Overdevest Nurseries, a 300-acre commercial nursery producer in New Jersey and lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His home is three or four hours inland, west from the Jersey coastline where Hurricane Sandy was expected to hit hardest, with 90mph gusts and tidal flooding.
“We’ve had constant rain since 4pm this afternoon, which began as light drizzle then intensified to steady rain. Now we have winds of 30 to 40mph, with gusts up to 60mph. Trees are swaying, branches broken and light debris blows in the wind.
“We have not been told to evacuate, but asked to stay inside our homes and keep off the roads. Our neighbours are doing the same. There are few vehicles on the roads and businesses have cancelled appointments and closed early. Schools and colleges are all also closed.”
He is planning to ride out the storm at home with his wife and two Springer Spaniels.
“The weatherman says that this storm will come on shore in about two hours – it is currently 55 miles off the coast now. They say it is 1,000 miles across and has the lowest atmospheric air pressure ever recorded, at 930 millibars. So what I am seeing is just the very start of what is to come.”
A hurricane has hit his area before, he noted.
“But this is forecast as being the biggest and most ferocious ever. Apparently, the worst on record on the east coast was The Long Island Express which hit in 1938.
“But they believe this one will be worse, what the weather folk are calling a ‘perfect storm’.
“We have been preparing since early yesterday morning. We think we are in as good a shape as we can be. We cleared everything off our decking, all loose things like light pots, chairs and tables.
“We got lots of food and drinking water and we got chargeable lamps charged and extra batteries. To reduce damage to our house we spent most of yesterday trimming the back and tying in shrubs and climbing roses on the side of our house.
“We have extra propane gas for the grill, cars all fuelled up, extra petrol in cans in the basement and the chainsaw sharpened.
“Our garden has several large trees and we expect some of them to sustain damage. Last year, during a smaller storm, we had six trees come down and when a stream flooded it swept away our wooden bridge, which I had rebuilt after a previous storm three years earlier.
“Also, we went to a hardware store today and bought five tarpaulins, rope and plastic in case the worst happens. With 60 to 70mph wind gusts and a lot of glass in the back of our house, we are worried about the trees crashing into the house.
“When the stream in my garden floods it washes away soil and erodes the banks, so prior to this I have been spending most of my weekends during the summer building retaining stone walls and a ‘causeway’ across the stream, rather than a bridge.
“Northern Ireland people know about stone walls and don’t mind doing a bit of hard work when it is needed. But most Americans regard this as being too labour intensive, so in my neighbourhood they refer to me as ‘the crazy guy’.”