to think the storm was quite bad?

[ethelb]

I am feeling a bit jaded after it took me two hours to get into work this morning and an interminable bus ride back as the TRAINS STILL AREN'T RUNNING, but I really wanted to answer some of the 'what storm?' sneerers from earlier today.

1. Maybe it was 'a bit breezy' where you are, but in SW London this morning the trees were bent double from 3am-7.30am. And we weren't the worst hit.
2. Maybe you think that it wouldn't have been reported if it had been further north, but I distinctly remember considerable national news coverage of the floods 'oop north' last year, including Hebden Bridge, which is a teeny town, compared to tens of millions affected in the south east and west today.
3. Maybe you 'just get on with it' when weather is bad near you, but when there are 30 trees across the line you usually get into work on, things are going to have to change a bit. Oh, and one of my employers offices lost its roof overnight in central london. Would you go in?
4. Maybe you think people were 'panicking' when people talked about preparing for a power cut, but 100,000s were left without power and still are.
5. Maybe you get this kind of weather every other week, but I haven't seen anything as bad since the 2007 storm myself.

Lots of people are injured, and some people lost their lives, and I just found these comments really baffling and insensitive.

Disclaimer: I am still quite cross that the Manchester-based deaths in the 2007 storms didn't get as much coverage as a death in the south.

Yes I think it's in poor taste to minimise it when people died :(

I saw loads of coverage on the news this morning. I am in Northumberland wher it hasn't been stormy at all.

I'm sure you're right, but "oop" really bugs me. It's pronounced differently here. :o

YANBU. At all. And I say that as somebody living in an area which wasn't really affected by the storm.

YANBU

YANBU. I know someone who died, it has wrecked a lot of houses, it is reall bad to minimise it, I think.

I can spell where really

@bunbaker I don't get what your point is, sorry? There was a big storm. As I said, I have seen national coverage of weather events that didn't affect me in the SE.

@panzee apologies

thats cos it didnt go across your area bunbaker.

ethelb yanbu, but its the same whenever there is a severe weather event. With some people - if it didnt affect them directly it didnt happen at all.

People died. hundreds of thousands without power. widespread rail disruption (good call from them to shut down with over 100 trees on the line). Heathrow and Gatwick severely disrupted, Dover shut. Many roads blocked (and people round here got together and cleared the roads themselves - well done to them!)

It had a major impact.

I agree with you OP. Storm was really bad. I am in South London too. Are people saying that weather in the South shouldn't be reported? There is often considerable news coverage of weather conditions all over the UK. And this storm was in South Wales as well as southern England...

Bearing in mind people have actually died I would say it was pretty major!

I agree. Despite all the warnings, four people still sadly died. Imagine how many more there could have been if the threat had not been presented so strongly.

Also, in other countries such as those in the Far East with frequent storms, the authorities are quite clear about the purpose of trains and other transport services... Get people home and keep them there until it's safe for people to be let loose again! If that hadn't happened here today again we would have had a lot more people on the streets and a lot more injuries and probably deaths.

Fine, no one area was terribly hit but a HUGE area of the country was badly affected. This makes it a significant event in my mind.

If the purpose of the warnings were was to minimise the number of people directly affected, it succeeded. If you were inconvenienced because you had something important to do, it wasn't like you didn't have enough notice to make other arrangements.

It's a well done to all the emergency services, agencies, councils and people who worked through the night from me. And if people still think it was a waste of time, try looking at it as a dry run for when we really DO have a recurrence of 1987!

@mim78 There were claims that this storm wouldn't have been reported if it hadn't affected the south of england. I dispute this, while recognising that 'the media' does have a bias.

The BBC did quite a lot of reporting from South Wales yesterday, and the south west was affected too. Though I think a lot of people from 'oop north' (sorry panzee) don't recognise the difference between the south east and south west tbh.

Erm think bunbaker's point was she lives miles away from the south, it wasn't stormy there and there was loads of coverage on her TV. Same for me. No storm here but lots of coverage which is as it should be. Who's minimising it?

What I'm saying is that it was big news in the north east as well and not trivialised because it didn't happen here. So YANBU. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Some other posters on other threads throughout the weekend and today wishing.

Oh my god ethelb of course we know the bloody difference between south east and south west!!! You do realise we're not a bunch on uneducated morons. And yes, "oop north" if f@cking annoying!!

is

and of uneducated morons. Sorry rage stopped my typing ability!

@bunbaker fair enough. I was refering to people on MN trivialising the storm, not northern news channels! Did you get much rain up there?

TBH there hasn't been much coverage of the heavy rain that was forcast to hit north of birmingham. Did it happen?

ooo I get you bunbaker :) -sorry!

some mners on other threads have been saying there was only widespread coverage cos it hit London yadayada (is that how you spell that word?)

As a southerner living in the north it is up north to me

A few spirs of rain and a little but windy - a typical autumn day really. I hope everyone gets back to normal soon.

We live in South Yorkshire and had the massive disruption from the floods in 2007, snow in 2010, floods last summer and snow last winter so I understand how awful it must be.

It has been fucking awful for my family and continues to be so, potentially tragic.

It wasn't a typical autumn day throughout the UK though.

That's what's annoying, even people in moderately affected areas saying 'oh it's only a bit of wind' when the majority of the wind happened before they woke up!

They think because they didn't see it themselves, it didn't happen, even though a man died in his car not so far away from where I work because of the weather.

People ARE minimising it.