Blow Me Down Sandy.

Arriving in Sarnia/Point Edward on Monday afternoon, there was high winds, but the wildest part of the storm came through the night and into Tuesday morning.

 I happened to snap this 'before' picture when we arrived on Monday late. You can see the old vinyl siding on the tallest unit (home of condo corporation president Ron, W45) was beginning to bulge and pucker a bit before it was ripped off a little later. Jim and Barb's Sea Ray is still in the water and didn't seem to sustain any damage. Wendy's brother Doug and his wife Daphne drove down to view the storm on Tuesday morning, so we toured around the area in their car, ending up at the Point Edward Casino for a late breakfast before retuning to London later that day.

When we woke up Tuesday morning the debris in the courtyard told us the wind had done some damage. The wind had done a thorough job of ripping off the siding on our neighbour's condo unit. Apparently there was water damage as well to the interior of the unit.

Sandy tore all the vinyl siding off the windward wall revealing the old, wooden clapboard  siding behind it.

Two young boys lean into the wind and rain at Canatara Park beach. A watercolour, by local artist Tim Carroll. Click to view.

Wendy's brother Doug gets closer to the raging lake for some pictures.

 The waves, although quite large are nowhere near the 20 to 30 feet that the weather service was showing. We figure the reason for this is that the waves lost a lot of their energy as they rolled across the relatively shallow, sandy bottomed area of about 25 feet in depth that extends out for 3 or 4 miles off shore.

The above map shows the Environment Canada wave sensor located 30 or 40 miles out in the lake was reading 23 foot waves, but by the time they arrived at shore, a lot of their energy had dissipated.

The wind however had nothing to slow it down along the shoreline. This big tree may have just fallen on this house in Bright's Grove as we passed. Notice the surprised resident in the window. There were hundreds of fallen trees and the damage is expected to reach over 10 million dollars for Sarnia alone.

The damage might have been much worse if this house hadn't been made of brick.

Just to add to the homeowner's woes, the wind collapsed his privacy screen.

The new gazebos at our marina took a beating. Pictures from Wendy's brother Doug.

 Roof blew off the Holiday Inn in Sarnia during our stay.

Posted by: diane deblaire // October 30, 2012

Sarnia, Ontario // Shot: October 30, 2012

The storm hit Sarnia Monday night into Tuesday morning. The wind blew the roof the Holiday Inn in Sarina that we were staying at. The roof blocked the view from our balcony.

All in all we thankfully escaped with relatively little damage compared to the widespread destruction wrought by Sandy throughout the eastern seaboard of the USA.
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