Cyclone RENE 15 Feb 10

Hi all, late entry this week! From one extreme to another the week started off with our guest from the north dropping in, Cyclone RENE. So she gets her own blog and here it is!

Jodie and the kids were old veterans preparing for the cyclone! The main change was this time round we had our cyclone shelter (kids cubby house) and Dad was staying put!!! Finally!!!!!! Once we were all battened down it was only a case of hurry up and wait but that arvo it went from lovely sunny day to wind and rain then more rain, then finally tree bending, leaf stripping winds. We moved to the shelter about two hours before the eye was due to hit. We did however, do the touristy thing and stood out under the house and snuck a peek (drinking a beer, of course)! During the eye of the cyclone we ventured out, mum and the kids collected all the mangoes and the only thing that broke the silence was the hammering of nails by the locals to secure what little roofing they had left, and local kids collecting mangoes up and down the street to sell at the markets the next day! Cyclone warnings were mainly in Tongan and the radio station played church music throughout the entire ordeal - bless them.

The back yard during the afternoon, all tropical!!

Same shot with three hours to impact!

The kids and all the families goodies packed in our cyclone shelter, ready for a quick exit if needed!

The next day was taken up with all residents in the compound helping in the clean up - chain sawing (great fun), tree lopping, small repairs around the compound and conducting damage assessments. Jodie did a tour around the local area in the arvo and took some amazing photo's sorry we couldn't fit them all in! But in time you may all get to see our slide shows!?! A truck load of local Army boys dropped in to remove a few of the larger trees - they were great as they'd been out all day helping the community clearing roads and repairing houses and were still glad to help us out! We have also now worked out that we live in a swamp as all roads into our place were under water for three or more days. Phones and power were down for nearly three days but we were the lucky ones having a generator (we only lost power for 50 sec).

Looking over the main road from the compound into the local High school!

No more back road into the compound, note the houses amongst the swamp!

Em ready to work and clean up the back yard!!

Dylan the Banana tree slayer and this was the shortest machete around!!

He had a ball, unfortunately nearly all the Banana tree's in the compound were snapped off!

The Tongan Defence Services (Army) helped remove all the rubbish once they had separated the Coconuts, Banana's and fire wood! Hey a free meal - there is always an up side!!!

This is a house a few doors up from us. Spotted the bedrooms yet??

44 houses in total were destroyed, this is not one of them, it was amazing how many places survived!

Tongan roof nails (anything heavy) tyres, bessa blocks, tree stumps and large rocks

It really only took three days and you would not have known there was a cyclone as the whole community just got in and cleaned up without complaining, just plenty of singing. Whole schools cleaning the streets and fore shore, the defence force were everywhere and entire families getting around with the local palm tree brooms (they are the best thing since sliced bread they can clean anything, inside, outside, grass, rocks) But once it is all piled up then they burn it so it is smoke city for a while!

The below video is a short clip taken about two hours before the eye hit, it was shot from the safety of under our house and gives you an idea of the noise and wind gusts. It is about 19.5 Meg so it could take some time!!