Luck

We've had some really nasty storms here in Northern Europe over last week, characterized mostly by extremely heavy winds. One morning, at 6:30 AM no less, I got stuck in a 27 KM traffic jam because a tractor trailer had blown over on the highway. And I saw a girl get swept off a dike while she was riding her bike. It was almost comical when a strong gust of wind came up and just forcefully shoved her bike sideways over the dike...luckily she wasn't hurt.

Here are a few other lucky folks that managed to weather the storm.



They started setting up the beach bars in Bloemendaal just in time for the storm. There is normally 100 yards of nice flat beach in front of the bars. I think one more day of heavy wind would have toppled this guy's livelihood into the sea.

Unbelievably lucky! This isn't stock footage...I just happened to have my camera with me when I went for a walk around my new office in Utrecht. This guy forgot to put his car in gear and the winds were just heavy enough to nudge him toward the canal. There are maybe 5 trees the whole way along the water...this guy was extremely lucky to be parked just in front of one of them.

North Central Europe got hit even heavier than we did. We're lucky that Schiphol airport has three runways all facing different directions. Even in heavy storms like this they can almost always still take-off and land on one runway that faces directly into the wind. The situation in Hamburg, Germany is not so fortunate. They are forced to land in a crosswind direction. This footage is amazing. I guess that the sideways landing is an accepted "technique" for cross-wind landing, but I can't imagine what it felt like for the passengers. Well, actually I can. I was on a flight taking off from Seattle back in the early 90's that was the last plane allowed to leave before a hurricane hit. We got swept sideways just as we left the ground and the wing-tip on the side of the plane that I was sitting on just missed the ground. Not fun. The video is not for anyone with a fear of flying...especially since you know that they had to loop around and try the landing again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z42fchrzhHY

And...completely unrelated to the storms in Europe is this video of an airport in Honduras. They say it is the most dangerous approach in the world for any international airport. Just when you think you are going to land you continue to follow the contour of the mountain downward to the very, very short runway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loyKfeV7NFg&feature=related