Mother Nature shows who's boss

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Mother Nature shows who’s boss

Mother Nature – all powerful and to be treated with respect – can put on a frightening display on occasion, as our current festive stormy period has shown.

Ellen Lynch

Tuesday, 14 January 2014
12:30 PM GMT



Every so often Mother Nature likes to let us know, in no uncertain terms, just who’s in charge. We can be going about our business, smug in the belief that we are in control when wham! She delivers a timely reminder that she’s the real boss and that we are, after all, only minuscule players in the grand scheme of things. And very much at her mercy.

That's been brought home to me many times and once again at the weekend. Saturday was a beautiful, clear, bright winter's day and so I ventured out to do some clean-up jobs around the yard, sweeping up damp, moldering leaves and wind-blown debris and rescuing dingy-looking washing that had been whipped by the wind and rain over days too wet to retrieve it. Then, later, as the designated driver on a night out, I had to contend with icy roads on the journey home. And that was only after I managed to finally get the key to turn in the frozen lock to open the door, and used my credit card to scrape ice off the windshield. (An altogether better use of said card, than how it is more usually employed. If only I could reserve it for that purpose!). That was around 2am.

A scant few hours later I was wakened in my warm bed by rain lashing against the windows and the wind howling through the trees that surround the house. We'd gone from -1 degrees and frost to 10 degrees with wind and rain, in quick succession.

Every once in a while Mother Nature unleashes her fiercesome powers and with far more terrible consequences than the recent storms we've endured. Typhoon Hiyan, which devastated parts of the Philippines in early November, is a recent example. Over 5,000 people were killed and many thousands more were injured and had their homes destroyed. The earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 is another case in point, resulting in the death of some 230,000 people, another 300,000 injured and a million people left homeless. The earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan in 2011 was equally devastating.

Before that, we remember Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that hit the south coast of the US with terrible effect, causing the death of an estimated 1,800 people and causing 81 billion dollars worth of damage, with New Orleans being the worst affected. Then there was the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, also triggered by an earthquake, in which almost 300,000 people died and millions were left homeless across 11 countries.

We are used to such disasters befalling other, faraway countries. We don't expect the elements to be as unkind to us even perched, as we are, on a rocky outcrop on the edge of the Atlantic.

But remember the heavy snow and ice of December 2011? The country virtually ground to a halt from mid December until after Christmas that year. Consider the chaos and misery here caused by heavy flooding of many parts of the country in recent weeks. Hundreds of homes and businesses damaged by floodwater, people’s livelihoods affected, the heavy cost of mopping up and putting things right.

Fallen trees were common around where I live during the recent storms. It was a strange phenomenon though, because, while I'd hear about them happening, I seldom saw one downed. I did see a lot of trailers full of chopped up wood being transported hither and thither on our roads. I was left with the impression of a small army of secret woodsmen, armed with chainsaws, poised and waiting, on full alert around the clock, for trees to come crashing down at which time the whispered news was passed around and they moved stealthily in, the buzzing of their saws the only evidence of their presence, as they reduced giant trees to piles of logs which were quickly whisked away. There must be a lot of woodpiles in a lot of sheds roundabout as a result.

At least in the snow and ice though people are cautious about moving about. I'm always amazed at the behaviour of some in stormy conditions. It's as if they are drawn to piers, cliffs and shores. "What's that you say? A storm eh? Gale force winds? Out of my way. I'm off to the pier head!" Granted the might of a storm tossing walls of water against a pier wall is a majestic sight, but one that would be much safer viewed in news footage than in person.

A few years ago I was reporting on a storm for the radio station in Wexford that I worked for. High tide was the danger time, the town was expected to be flooded. County council staff had been out all day sandbagging and business owners put up their flood barriers and did all they could to protect their premises. I positioned myself on what I considered to be a safe enough vantage point along the quay to report live on the happenings. As the evening progressed, the water rose and the wind grew to a gale, and it seemed as though every person in Wexford had gathered on the quayside. Not just that, but they walked up and down along the furthest section of the quay wall, nearest to the open water. I saw a couple, with a young baby in a buggy, stroll (well not so much stroll as struggle to keep upright in a 110km/h gale), as nonchalant as if they were out for a Sunday walk. Observing the scene, the county council's senior engineer was as flabbergasted as I was. "There's no telling them," he told me, shaking his head at the lunacy of it.

Incidentally a lot of homes and business premises that suffered flood damage that night reported that the situation was made much worse by gawking motorists driving through the floodwaters, pushing it into their properties over and over.

I saw people gathering in and around the bridge in Fermoy on Monday night of last week, when the river was expected to burst its banks. I saw couples with young children. I shuddered at the sight and left for home after getting pictures of the fast flowing, powerful river, relieved to put distance between myself and it.

Thankfully, our stormy spell is due to come to an end later this week. People will be glad to see the back of it. Even so, given the huge loss of life incurred during natural disasters elsewhere, we have a lot to be grateful for.

Natural disasters are nature’s way of telling us that while we might think we are omnipotent, we’re not the ones in charge. It’s a salutary lesson and very, very humbling.



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