4th November

Last week’s newsletter was full about Pumpkins and getting ready for pumpkin day.

I didn’t have room left to write about our tunnel damage.

If you remember back to 2 weeks ago, we had the first of the named storms.

Naming each storm coming in doesn’t help in any way, in remembering it or getting ready for it coming.

We have had tunnels for over 37 years.

And from around October to April, we expect to have quite a few nervous days with high winds.

We had one on 9th Feb 2022, that completely flattened one tunnel and ripped the other four.

I remember the date not the name, it cost us thousand to replace that tunnel and re sheet the rest.

The last big one I remember was in November 1998, it destroyed all the framework of three tunnels, back then these winds didn’t get fancy names.

There was just hold on. Hold on tight, this one is bad and lastly this is horrendous cut the polythene and save the frames.

Not having a name made no difference, we still remember the bad ones.

We have one tunnel I have repaired with tape and the framing needs a bit of work, plus the door frames at both ends are in need of repair.

The door frames are just wood, they do last for years, but eventually they rot, and need replaced.

I was thinking that tunnel would not make it through the night the winds were around 55 to 60 mph, which is tunnel damage speeds.

But after several inspections through the night all was good, the wind was coming in from a good direction.

If we get south westerly winds, they cause real damage, but this had changed and was coming from south easterly.

On inspection the following morning we did have one tunnel ripped.    

But tunnel 5 which I expected to rip, and if it had,  it would be ok,  because I do need to re pair it.

But it was  perfect zero damage, which was a surprise.

But tunnel 2 had a rip along the ridge covering 4 bays, not the best place.

We taped it, but now we have two to repair.