Thar she blew!

The 'morning after' here is gusty, with a pale blue sky (now, the eternal pale grey) .

Starting Wednesday night, though, a wild storm started and continued all day yesterday. "Stay inside!", warned the National Crisis Center, to cyclists and motorists. I heard last evening that Shell's corporate offices (in The Hague) sent its employees home at 1pm. Schools closed early, too. My neighbor's son told her that it had taken him two hours to drive from Rotterdam to Gouda, a distance of (what seems to be) about 20-25 miles. I had planned a few errands on the high street ("Breestraat" or "wide" street), the main drag for some nice shops (such as the book shops that stock the university's text books), my pharmacy, the main post office and my hair salon, and only five minutes from my home. Normally, it is clotted with bikes and large city buses. Fortunately, cars are not allowed. I started on it at noon and left at about 3pm. It was a ghost street! Hardly any bikes at all. I couldn 't believe my eyes (and wasn't aware of how severe the storm was, around the country). I figured that it was the lack of students, most having done exams and left town. That was likely part of the situation, but mostly it was people staying home. I locked my bike on a side alley, rather than on the Breestraat. With all the shops, city buildings and curves of the street, I felt somewhat sheltered from the wind.

However, during a pause in downpours, as I set off down the Breestraat for the post office, I was nearly blown off my bike and had to walk it, getting soaked. As I finished up at the post office, my neighbor rang me on my cell phone, very excited, saying my next-door neighbor had come to her, asking if she had a key to my house, since a window had blown out! When I got home, the window in question was the cracked skylight, its replacement on order for over a month. Still, there now was a hole in the roof (opening over the stairwell) of about 18" square. I rang the realtor immediately, and they had the window company over by 7:30pm. They sawed a piece of plywood to fit, covered it in heavy plastic, and nailed it over the hole. Fortunately, there was no rain while this was going on.

The paper this morning headlined with "Heavy storm takes 5 lives", showing eight color photos of large downed trees and crumpled cars in Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Breda (near the Belgian border). One photo shows a semi, with its trailor hanging off a bridge into some body of water. Tens of millions in damage. According to the paper, roofs are now built much more cheaply than in the past, and can be blown off, causing huge damage both to the exposed buildings and also as the roof flies around. Given how densely populated Holland is (#2 in the world), this is a major issue. The chimney of an old chocolate factory in Bussum (the tv/radio center, just SE of Amsterdam) blew off and came to rest on the train tracks! Like San Francisco with earthquakes, one of the worst risks with storms here is exploding/flying broken glass. Winds got up to 200kph. Here in Leiden, it was nothing like that, but still very windy, with heavy rains. From the paper's map, the storm moved mainly west to east, continuing to Poland and also in England. As I scan the paper, even the trains were stopped nationwide, to avoid hitting downed trees. I had no idea yesterday, how bad it was across the country. At least, all of the electrical lines are below ground here. There's no mention of loss of power anywhere, unlike the States' huge winter storms, and the temperature still remains around 45-50F. My only task was to reset my Internet connection.

Reading on in the paper, Zeeland shut its sluices. Zeeland, south of Rotterdam, was the main disaster area in the huge flood of 1953, which spawned the famous Delta Project, now copied around the world (except in New Orleans, despite consulting with one of the original engineers from the Delta Project; what fools). In the Port of Rotterdam yesterday afternoon, a ship rammed into landings of an oil terminal and split open a pipe, letting a lot of oil into the water. Due to the wind, the oil was pushed into a corner of the eight petroleum harbors. The oil carried with it, though, other things, which produced a nasty smell, said the paper. Three ships broke loose. The "Emma Maersk", the world's largest container ship, had to be dragged back to its place by three tugs. Tee-hee, I think, since Maersk was always the benchmark competition of my former employer, American President Lines (now owned by Singaporean Neptune Orient Lines). According to the paper, the harbor suffered minimal damage. There's no mention of any crane damage, but I always fret about those enormous cranes at ports. I guess that the Dutch know better than most countries how to secure its ports.

I guess I should get a television. With the BBC on the radio, the daily paper and the Internet, I haven't missed t.v. here, which is as bad as the network stuff in the U.S., with lots of U.S. imports. I've seen DVDs on my laptop. My rent includes payment for cable, though, so I guess it's time to cave in. It will help my Dutch.

Off to resume a bit of retail therapy. I'm itching for a tour of the Port of Rotterdam, but it will wait a few weeks.