Blown away suburbs

Several of Sydney's northern and north western suburbs were nearly blown away on Saturday night. It was probably the wildest storm that I've ever seen, and it caused hundreds of trees to come down, some on houses, many across roads, and lots of them bringing down power lines.

The storms, and possibly tornadoes even, had been much forecast. I'd cancelled a Thursday bushwalk, which could have gone ahead as it happens. The weather came late.

Walking around my local streets afterwards, I surveyed the destruction. Our power is now back on, though many will have to wait another day or two. SES and electricity crews have converged on the area from all over the state, and appear to be working miracles.

Some random observations:

* As well as no electricity, there was no phone service. We used to have phones that didn't need mains electricity, and the mobile system fails at times like these because everyone's needing to make calls.

* Although none of the traffic lights were working, the traffic generally flowed far better than usual.

* Despite widespread gridlock in some areas because of trees down on main roads, there was almost no assistance from the 'Emergency Broadcaster', the ABC. Maybe in times gone by, before the vicious cost-cutting of its idealogically driven political enemies, it would have been different. Hardly a mention that anything had  happened, let alone what streets were blocked, and what else was happening where.

* Our local streets were full of talkative, friendly neighbours. There's nothing like a little adversity to bring a community together!