A few of the houses in my street have roof damage *as far as I know* my house is ok, but i'll need to put the front flap back on the letterbox tomorrow I spent the afternoon benching in the garage.... got some nice scores too!
Our house has roof damage, two ridge tiles off - and our recycling bins ("kerbie's") which were full of recycling waste and weighed down with two bricks each both got blown out from the back of the house, across the garden, over a 6-7' fence and into the neighbours garden. There were a couple of large branches down off one of the big trees out the back as well, and the torrential rain has washed a lot of dirt and leaves down into the spouting at the bottom of one of the roof valleys, blocking it completely. That was yesterday. Today, we're under about 2 inches of snow and it's still coming hard. And it's only 8AM. I just left Mum to work in it and couldn't get the car back up the driveway - had to get out and shovel/grit myself a path back up to the garage door. I put the car in again (covered in snow but oh well) because I'm not leaving here for another hour or so this morning. I'm supposed to go to Hilltown and then Belfast - if that snow continues I'll be going nowhere! :/
The thrust force on the turbine would rotate the nacelle backwards and downwards (in the vertical plane), so the blades shouldn't get any closer to the tower if it deflects. Most likely the blades have deformed enough to hit the tower at the bottom of rotation as you said; although it almost looks like one of the blades just fails without striking anything, maybe due to the massive drag. Once one is broken and the turbine is out of balance, it all just 'splodes itself
They're so fun to watch asploding! Although having been under, inside and generally up close and personal with these monsters in the past, I can imagine it'd be quite scary to be there when one goes bang! The picture of the one on fire from the BBC website is amazing!
Belfast is dry, clear skies. Cold, but no snow. We didn't get too much wind, enough to blast out weak small branches but nothing too bad. Think you should be fine once you get on the motorway.
I've seen some video now and the yaw control system (that turns the nacelle in to the wind) has failed, so it was just turning freely. Must have overheated those motors which caused the burn out. edit - video
Hurricane "Bawbag" as seen from the Ekofisk platform in the north sea. The walkway connects the accommodation platform to the production platform.
Frankly I'm surprised they can work efficiently, lest suffer the wrath of health and safety with balls that big.
Brother works out in the North Sea. They've got chemists with BSc's whose sole job is to test all incoming potable water for contamination on 80k a year. I'd cart my massive balls around in a wheelbarrow for that sort of money for that little work.
If the focast is right and we get more high winds this week, who wants to vote for this one to be called Hurricane Fannybawz? You might not get that joke if you're not from Scotland.
You have to watch you do not fall into the offshore trap though. £20k of that salary is your offshore and shift allowance so if you come onshore you get a £20k pay cut. Once your used to that income and your mortgage is based around it your stuck. The pay is good but your working 12 hour shifts for 14 days while sitting on a highly explosive bit of rusting metal in the middle of one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
Hardly a terrible life. The philipino's work 6-12 months on the ships for less than 20k USD a year, and to them that's a great job.
Oh you must be next door to my mum in balmedie or around there anyways, she lost power at 7 as well and watched sparks flying from transformer for 2days before they fixed it.
It's picking up again That was outside the office this morning, on the way into work two roads were closed due to downed trees.
My back fence has blown over, everyone put their recycling bins out last night, so the street is COVERED in crap. Next door neighbours roof is pretty wrecked. Sad face!
