TheBanyanTree: The Day Before Yesterday . . .

[Roger Pye]

11pm Tuesday

MAJESTIC. . .   STATELY . . .  STUPENDOUS . . .  BEAUTIFUL . . .

The superlatives failed to describe what I was seeing as I stood in our 
back garden, awestruck, gazing at the immense cloud proceeding steadily 
soundlessly eastwards. Shot through and through with continuous 
lightning flashes, the cloud was a rippling translucent white in an 
otherwise totally dark sky.

 From late afternoon we had been troubled by thunderstorms coming from 
behind us to the west and skirting around to dump rain on southern 
Canberra. All too often that had been happening in recent weeks, 
rainfall concentrating on those areas with us catching just a few 
millimetres. The thoughts drifted through my mind interspersed with a 
search of my memory for sights I had experienced akin to this one.

There was nothing comparable!

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
8.45am Wednesday

The mobile phone on my desk sounded off; I groped for it amidst the 
usual clutter of papers, folders and bits and pieces,  glanced at the 
number calling - it was Robin.

"You are not going to believe this," she said. "I am in O'Connor, stuck 
in traffic. I have been here for I don't know how long. Nobody seems to 
be going anywhere. I can see the entrance to the university but it's 
closed off, barricaded. And there's ice, piles of it, everywhere, on 
roofs, gardens, the sides of the roads. And leaves! Every tree in the 
city must have lost its leaves. When I get to uni I'll let you know."

O'Connor? 10 kms away. It had taken her 45 minutes to drive there. What 
was she doing there, it was the wrong side of the main road which passes 
the ANU. And ice - what was she talking about? Ice we don't get, just a 
little snow in the depths of winter. The beautiful cloud, I thought, it 
had to be the cloud.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
10am

"I'm outside the Environment Centre, I though I'd better check to see if 
it's still here, if I still have a place to manage. I haven't been 
inside yet, I'm standing on a thick layer of ice on the ramp. There's 
ice everywhere, lots of it, and bulldozers and bobcats clearing the 
streets. The university is closed for the day, probably the rest of the 
week, I can't get to my office at the faculty, there's water damage from 
collapsing ceilings. This place looks all right but the ANU Co-op next 
door has lost the ceiling over its cool room. Okay, I'm going inside the 
Centre now."

I sat, waiting impatiently. We were scheduled to move next week from 
this building to another on the other side of the campus and had been 
packing and sorting and cleaning out records and stuff for several 
weeks. The Centre held a valuable and unique 6,000 item environmental 
print library. I shuddered at the thought of the damage if the roof had 
given way, the roof of a wooden-walled building erected as temporary 
accommodation during World War II.

"Okay, it doesn't look bad. Part of the ceiling in my office is bulging 
downwards, you'd better bring a tarp in when you come. There's water 
pouring through the kitchen ceiling but it's not a problem yet. The 
carpet in the main area is damp in places but it looks like the 
Collection has come through unscathed. God knows what the archival area 
in the rest of the building is like, there's no power here and I'm not 
going inside in the dark!"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The supercell storm dumped an almost even layer of hail one metre deep 
all over the centre of the city and covered it with leaves off the trees 
for which autumn had come very early and very swiftly.  By midnight the 
night before most of the roads had been blocked. 70 buildings at the ANU 
alone were damaged, many severely, so one may imagine what the rest of 
the central building district and surrounding dwellings were like.

Most of the ice has gone now and things are back to normal - almost. The 
Centre is still moving but I'm not sure when. The transportable we're 
going to occupy came through without a scratch. It's just a question of 
time - people - and availability of help.

And also - I can't get that majestic stately stupendously beautiful 
cloud out of my mind.

roger