9.23.13 Monday

We were scheduled to take the ferry back to Nova Scotia at noon today. 

Last night Linda was talking with Alice saying that we would be leaving in the morning.   Alice told Linda the winds for tomorrow are forecast to reach 100km/h (60 mph) at the Werckhouse and we may not want to leave until it backed down. 

 

This morning Alice’s husband Dennis drove out to the highway and saw that the tractor trailers were holed up in a parking lot.  We are at the northern end of the Wreckhouse.  They were not going to chance being blown over.  Alice showed pictures of a truck that was picked up and blown 20 yards off the highway.

 

One of the other campers drove out to talk to the truckers and they said they aren’t going anywhere today.  One other driver left for the ferry a few minutes ago but “He’s kind of a psyco”.   We all decided to wait until tomorrow.  Denise called Atlantic Maritime and we all had our booking changed.

 

The Wreckhouse is a section along the southern end of the Long Range Mountains and is famous for its very high winds.  Winds have been clocked at 200Km/H (125 mph, that’s like a category three hurricane).  Located about 20 Km north of Port-au-Basque.  As southeast winds funnel down off the 1700 ft. high mountains it accelerates and has been known to blow rail cars off the tracks.

 

Lauchie McDougal (1896-1965) was engaged by the Newfoundland Railway to telephone railway officials about impending conditions due to the high winds.  Lauchie instantly took advantage of the opportunity claiming he could actually sniff the wind.  This gave him the title of “Gale Sniffer Extraordinaire”. 

 

Lauchie lived in a low, wooden clapboard house on the plain near the railway track, right in the path of the wind. He gauged its force by how his house trembled when it blew. When he thought trains would be in danger, he informed the railway agent at Port aux Basques. The agent, playing it safe, would hold departing trains and notify the dispatcher at Bishops Falls to hold an arriving train at St. Andrews station. In 1950 this system of dispatching trains on the opinion of a non-railroader in a house by the tracks miles away struck the professional railroaders of Canadian National Railway as anachronistic. They decided to ignore Lauchie's advice. The train left Port aux Basques despite the warnings. The strong winds blew three cars over as the train made its way through Wreckhouse. Later another, more scientific approach was attempted: an anemometer was installed on the plain between the base of the mountain and the track with a land line connection providing information to a gauge at Port aux Basques. However, when the south-east wind came across the plain it blew the anemometer away. Lauchie was definitely more resistant to the winds and so he held his job for some time.

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Railway/en/p.php?id=42

 

Although Lauchie and the railway are gone the winds still persist.  Many travelers today wish they could have had his warnings after they find their vehicle bottoms up

 

A break in the storm

Storm clouds engulf the mountains

The forecast were right.  We had high winds and blowing rain most of the day.  Alice and Dennis gave good advice.

 


Today was Dennis' turn to hold down the fort. 

Dennis and his signature smile

 
 
 

We kept ourselves entertained with word books and computer games.



That's one way to get wash job