Apocalypse now (continued)

Here are some more pictures from yesterday evening

This is the tree by the entrance to the kibbutz whose branches touched the electricity wires. This is what caused the first power cut.

This is a tree which fell down near the old school buildings and crushed a football net frame.

This is the tree that fell down next to our neighbours. The roots came out of the ground. Fortunately the tree lay across the path and didn't bring down the wooden balcony. This is what I saw when I came out of my house and looked right.

And this is what I saw when I came out of the house and looked left. 

At about 11pm, the winds, which had been blowing at 60-80 km/hour, relaxed somewhat, which is when the rain started falling. At first the rain was quite light, but it became heavier as time went by. I was surprised to read that only 11 mm fell; I got the impression that it was much more.

All of the fallen trees have been cut with power saws into smaller pieces, allowing them to be moved and so allow access through the paths. They'll be collected on Sunday.

All of the above shows how fragile our existence really is. We should be thankful that we have a roof over our heads and that a tree did not fall on that roof.

Another cause of the apocalypse is the political situation in Israel: three times we have gone to the polls in less than 12 months and no one has been able to form a government. There were calls last night for an emergency government to be formed, maybe one with a limited tenure of three to six months. Because the current government is transitory (the same government which was in place a year ago), they can't pass any emergency laws and they also can't make any personnel changes. An emergency government is sorely needed to pass certain legislation which would make life much easier. They can agree to disagree on foreign/defence policy, but at the moment everyone around the world is looking inwards.