Originally Posted by
Brian 48nav
I started in LL ATC in November 1986 - Tridents had gone by then.
My watch commenced a night duty at 2200 ( or was it 2130 ? ) just before the '87 hurricane. IIRC, when we came in we were on Easterlies and just after the Tower went down to one ATCO for the night he had to ask approach to send someone up to help him 'change ends' as the slight westerly tailwind was becoming a problem. In those heady days we had enough staff rostered so that one lucky person got a 'long sleep' in a quiet room somewhere - that night it was me. When I got my head down, probably just before midnight, we were now on Westerlies and calm prevailed. When I got up just before 6 all hell had broken loose! 23 was in use and 27R had quite a lot of debris blown on to it. Again IIRC a parked aircraft had been blown against a terminal, Lufthansa? The drive back home to Dorset was interesting, though in fact our area suffered more damage in the January '90 storm. Memories a bit hazy as I've literally just arrived home knackered, after a long drive back from France!
I went to bed about midnight and didn't emerge until late next morning as I was on a 1pm start at Farnborough, so I slept through it all. Did runway inspection when I got in and there were all sorts of unusual seabirds on the airfield (oystercatchers, cormorants) as well as debris.