Rockhampton

[argeng]

Hi RC' or any one that has been in contact.

How did you fair?
Bruce

[.RC.]

Well the 10EE survived ok... I did get about 20mm of water in the room it is housed in. No power except generators.. limited internet access that works sporadically. lots of wind and rain. reasonable number of trees down but not too bad... went rigt over the top of us.. had a calm period during the half time lull :D then the wind changed sides..

Not sure how guzzijohn got on.. Most of Rockhampton and yeppoon has no power still..

Not an event I want to go through again for awhile, but the wind damage areas are interesting to watch.. some areas seemed to be protected and others suffered major damage.. Terrain played a large part in it..

[RayG]

Good to hear everything is ok.. take care.

Ray

[Grahame Collins]

Glad to to hear you are Ok!
Grahame

[GuzziJohn]

No real problems for me in Rockhampton. Just a few trees down. The shed stayed dry so no issues there. As R.C said the eye passed straight over us. Everyone in the street was out checking the damage during the calm period.

Power came back on for us this afternoon ( best news in days). Some people will be waiting weeks. The power line damage is unbelievable.
An inverter to charge the phones and a 12 volt fridge have served us well. Still I have nothing to complain about considering the damage some people have suffered.

Coincidentally I have recently collected my Dad's wood lathe and with all the fallen timber around I will grab some pieces for my future wood turning practice.

I work in the water supply area in Yeppoon so work has been very challenging the last few days. We have so many generators running it's hard to keep track of them all.

Hopefully most things will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

John

[eskimo]

yeah ...take care guys

glad all is okay

[matthew_g]

Well the 10EE survived ok... I did get about 20mm of water in the room it is housed in. No power except generators.. limited internet access that works sporadically. lots of wind and rain. reasonable number of trees down but not too bad... went rigt over the top of us.. had a calm period during the half time lull :D then the wind changed sides..

Not sure how guzzijohn got on.. Most of Rockhampton and yeppoon has no power still..

Not an event I want to go through again for awhile, but the wind damage areas are interesting to watch.. some areas seemed to be protected and others suffered major damage.. Terrain played a large part in it..


No real problems for me in Rockhampton. Just a few trees down. The shed stayed dry so no issues there. As R.C said the eye passed straight over us. Everyone in the street was out checking the damage during the calm period.

Power came back on for us this afternoon ( best news in days). Some people will be waiting weeks. The power line damage is unbelievable.
An inverter to charge the phones and a 12 volt fridge have served us well. Still I have nothing to complain about considering the damage some people have suffered.

Coincidentally I have recently collected my Dad's wood lathe and with all the fallen timber around I will grab some pieces for my future wood turning practice.

I work in the water supply area in Yeppoon so work has been very challenging the last few days. We have so many generators running it's hard to keep track of them all.

Hopefully most things will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

John
All I can say is I'm glad you 2 guys and your families are safe and sound. After living in Darwin for many years, I know all to well how frightening it can be when big storms and floods hit your home place.
Take care my friends.

Matt

[.RC.]

No real problems for me in Rockhampton. Just a few trees down. The shed stayed dry so no issues there. As R.C said the eye passed straight over us. Everyone in the street was out checking the damage during the calm period.

Power came back on for us this afternoon ( best news in days). Some people will be waiting weeks. The power line damage is unbelievable.
An inverter to charge the phones and a 12 volt fridge have served us well. Still I have nothing to complain about considering the damage some people have suffered.

Coincidentally I have recently collected my Dad's wood lathe and with all the fallen timber around I will grab some pieces for my future wood turning practice.

I work in the water supply area in Yeppoon so work has been very challenging the last few days. We have so many generators running it's hard to keep track of them all.

Hopefully most things will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

John

That is good to hear.. Ergon is certainly out in force at the moment doing the best they can.. Some massive damage in Byfield.. Marajuana prices migt be on the way up if the crops got destroyed :D

Marmor suffered massive damage as well but has been largely forgotten. If my main internet comes back on I should be able to upload some pictures and video...

[.RC.]

And we are back online properly..... still on emergency generator power though... Maybe later in the week it will come back... Had helicopter flying around checking the lines today...

Some pictures...

Shed I lost... Turns out the posts were only 600mm in the ground..

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An old old long since abandoned house... That I am surprised lasted this long..

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Windmill gone.. Not a great loss as the head was stuffed and due for replacement anyway.

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Some water during the half time lull

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Lots of flood damage... The wind damage we got is nothing compared to the flood damage to fences.. Some selective areas possibly the highest for along long time...

[.RC.]

Video -->> http://youtu.be/UiAs0wuVauc

[old1955]

We survived without damage and the shed is fine. When we got the house one of my requirements was that there were to be no trees. They went before we moved in. That was 2002. Last Friday I was reminded why I wanted that. We live in Frenchville and still don't have power. I have a high voltage line down in front of the house. Two doors up a tree has snapped then gone through the power lines after which it has done a couple of 360's. Unbelievable mess of lines etc. Apparently there were 1800 reported power lines down in and around Rocky. Our power is not expected to be on before Friday or the following Monday. That of course is subject to change. We bailed out yesterday and came to Brisbane. A few nights without CPAP and I had had enough.

Anyway all good for us and I hope for our other members.

Regards,

Ross

P.S. Sorry about the damage .RC

[.RC.]

Power back on... if I could kiss electricity right now I would... :):)

[eskimo]

if I could kiss electricity right now I would...

you can if you like...but let me tell you it is going to tingle a tad more than a 9v battery:D

[old1955]

Power back on... if I could kiss electricity right now I would... :):)

Thats good news, still waiting for ours.

Ross

[GuzziJohn]

Power back on... if I could kiss electricity right now I would... :):)

Youre right Richard. You don't realize how much you miss the modern conveniences until you spend some time without them.


Traveled up north of Yeppoon today to check on damage.
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The power workers have some busy times ahead.

From a distance a lot of the hills look burnt. When you get closer you realize there's no leaves left on a lot of the trees.
341134

After 7 days of installing generators and keeping the water flowing I'm looking forward to a weekend off.
Well I'll still be working, cleaning up my own messy yard.

John

[.RC.]

Things are slowly getting back to normal again, it will take a long time to get everything in order again..

Finally got one mill fixed for the neighbour... They are expensive now.... $5400+GST for the head alone.. All Queensland made still, castings included..


oooh shiny... :D

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And before anyone asks, yes it is straight up and down, that pipe you see going to the tank is as crooked as anything, it was installed by the professional windmill repairer when he put plastic pipes down it..

Still have this one to go which we use.. it is from around sometime between the end of WW2 and the mid/late 1920's... I think they got their money's worth out of it..

344058

[.RC.]

Finally got onto the windmill in the second picture above... Was a fair bit to do to it, more then expected since the crane was there we did a few other things that needed doing...

Actually started a few weeks back, removed the old head and the tail had already fallen onto the ground sometime in the past few months.. While the crane was there we decided to pull the tower down onto the ground to make things easier... We replaced the old posts that hold the pipes above the bore with steel posts concreted in..

Putting the new head on proved to be harder then I thought... The tower is very old and a different angle to the more modern design (modern as in the 1930's rather then the 1910's) So the bottom guide and tower cap did not fit in their respective positions without some tower modifications, which involved cutting into the tower legs, bending them inwards and then welding the cut legs back up again... Then replacing the tower platform which might as well not have been there, or to put it another way, you did not stand on it :D.

The tower is back up vertical again (in the picture below the tower has just been lifted out of the way temporarily as we work around the bore).. Just has half a day left to put the head on it sometime next week... It is easy to get a bit nostalgic doing this sort of work in these places. Apparently my grandfather and his brother in law put this bore down in 1967 which would have only been a few years before he died.. It was a good day today...

Also been cutting timber out of iron bark trees that got blown over... Have got a fair stockpile to cut up into posts.. I will get a pic of them tomorrow..

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349691

[.RC.]

It was a good day today...



Well actually, should point out one incident that happened...

My father and I while waiting for more help to arrive were putting the platform onto the tower, which at that stage was on the ground, when my father went to get something and told me to come over and look at this... Over at the bore there was a quite large brown snake, not a harmless variety either...

So my father got the bright idea, rather then dong the snake, we would relocate it, so with long handles shovel in hand he went to shoo the snake off towards the creek direction.. Things did not go to plan, when the snake decided to go the other way and crawl into my crane truck..

He thought it was a wonderful joke... I did not really see the funny side of it, as I was the one who had to hop into the rusty cab with many snake sized hidey spots to drive it away a bit so we could dig away all the silt that had accumulated around the bore site...

Of course I was also told with great laughter to get the albino snake out to scare the other snake away...

:D

[Ropetangler]

Looking good .RC, I had wondered how the mill that you had repaired last year had survived the blow, but I hadn't gotten around to asking you about it. I take it that it did survive and all is well with it now. Did the fan on the mill pictured above, come down in the wind, and if so did it bring the rest of the head with it? You mentioned previously that it was pretty well stuffed, but was it rebuildable or was it well beyond economic repair. If the whole head came down in the breeze, I'm guessing that it would have been well smashed up by the sudden stop. I hope that you have one of those good, well paying jobs that our mate Joe was speaking of, (or alternatively that your wife is a merchant banker), so that the expenses in repairing the farm infrastructure, is just a trifling bit of small change.:o Good luck with the finishing touches next week. Cheers and all the best,
Rob

[pipeclay]

As they what ever.

[.RC.]

Looking good .RC, I had wondered how the mill that you had repaired last year had survived the blow,

We did not suffer much damage to any of our mills... One lost a sail and another snapped a wood rod which is a 40mmX40mm piece of square timber that connects the mill head to the steel rod that goes down the bore.. That was it... It was just other people that seemed to suffer major damage.. And even then it seems to be a pretty small percentage....



Did the fan on the mill pictured above, come down in the wind, and if so did it bring the rest of the head with it? You mentioned previously that it was pretty well stuffed, but was it rebuildable or was it well beyond economic repair. If the whole head came down in the breeze, I'm guessing that it would have been well smashed up by the sudden stop.

Yes it got ripped off in one piece... What I suspect happened is the very top section is held on by twelve bolts... I suspect most of them were missing as there was no way that could have been ripped off otherwise.. I had not been up there to check it out before the cyclone as it being the neighbours and they had their mills serviced by a different person.. The wheel is stuffed, but the head itself could be rebuilt.. it uses babbit bearings that have to be poured into place.. In this day and age though with so few people using windmills, it is usually cheaper to buy a more modern (post 1952) second hand one that uses replaceable bearings..



I hope that you have one of those good, well paying jobs that our mate Joe was speaking of, (or alternatively that your wife is a merchant banker), so that the expenses in repairing the farm infrastructure, is just a trifling bit of small change.:o Good luck with the finishing touches next week. Cheers and all the best,
Rob

yes I did a face palm when I heard that on the news.. These politicians on every side, right, left, up and down are so far removed from reality it is scary...

[.RC.]

Done and done....

You know it is a professional job, by the large amount of overspray on the ground when I spray painted the wheel and tail :D


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[old1955]

Nice to see it done .RC.

Ross

[Ropetangler]

It looks like you were just in time to give the birds a drink there Richard. You could have used a drop sheet there because the next thing you know there will be a drought, and the only grass you have will be covered in 2 pack silver frost:D. I was thinking that the Hiab Truck could do with some mud guards, but then it occurred to me that you may not get much mud up there, just dust or a couple of metres of fast flowing water.
Real good work on the old mill RC, I'd hate to think what it would cost to get the nearest contractor out to do a job like that, enough to take the grin off Joes face if he had to pay the bill I'll bet.
Rob