|
|
PGTS High and Mighty BlogThread: Global Warming/Bio-Security |
|
Gerry Patterson. The world's most humble blogger | |
Edited and endorsed by PGTS, Home of the world's most humble blogger | |
| |
Killer Winds In Melbourne. |
|
Chronogical Blog Entries:
|
|
| |
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:26:35 +1100The PGTS site has been offline for several hours. Yesterday afternoon a northerly wind started to intensify as predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology. However by the earlier afternoon, these winds had become so severe that many areas in the greater Melbourne area suffered extensive damage. |
Now dubbed the "Killer Winds" by more sensational elements of the commercial media, because of two deaths attributed to them, these winds ripped branches from trees and and some very large trees were uprooted. Traffic jams developed and many areas of Melbourne were blacked out. Traffic lights were also affected.
My web site went down at 13:37. My wife reported loose wires dangling near the house, and I asked her to report it to Telstra. The operator said that with the current volume of calls, it might take five to seven days to respond. As it turned out the loose wires had nothing to do with the problem, the constant power disruptions as branches crashed into power lines in the surrounding area had caused the modem, answering machine, and firewall to lose their minds. I restarted everything at 17:07.
Then the power failed totally at 19:51 and was not restored until 04:30 the next morning. At the time of writing, some areas in Melbourne are still without power. State Emergency Services, Power and Telephone companies have been overwhelmed by calls, and are currently working through the backlog.