DORSET One El of a storm
100mph winds and 30ft waves batter Britain’s roads and coast
STORM Eleanor left Britain battered and bruised yesterday, causing motoring mayhem and apparently leaving one person dead. Winds of up to 100mph left thousands of homes and firms without power as 30ft waves hit the coast.
A body was recovered from the sea near Splash Point in Seaford, East Sussex, at 8am. Police are investigating whether the unidentified victim was swept into the water by the gales.
The strongest winds of 100mph were recorded at Great Dun Fell in Cumbria at 1am. Gusts of up to 89mph were recorded on the Isle of Wight and of 73mph in Northolt, north-west London.
However, as Britain begins the clear-up operation, forecasters warned that temperatures would plummet by the weekend, down to 0C (32F) in the South and -8C (18F) for parts of Scotland. Eleanor wreaked havoc on the roads yesterday, with overturned vehicles closing the A1M, M6 and M5. An HGV driver escaped unhurt when his truck was blown off the southbound M6 at Tebay in Cumbria, and left lying on its side down an embankment.
But another trucker was taken to hospital in Birmingham after his lorry overturned and caught fire on the M5 at junction 4 near Bromsgrove, closing the motorway in both directions.
There were huge tailbacks on the A14 in Suffolk when the Orwell Bridge, linking Ipswich and Felixstowe, was shut, while winds also
closed the Dartford Crossing bridge on the M25. The Thames Barrier was shut for the 180th
time since it opened in 1984 to
protect London from tidal floods. National Rail reported disruptions to trains across the country, including between Worcester and Oxford, Birmingham and Kings Norton, and Brighton and Haywards Heath in West Sussex.
A 30ft stretch of sea wall was breached by tides in Portreath, Cornwall, leaving the road flooded. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency warned: ‘We cannot stress enough that piers, rocks, harbours and the water’s edge are not safe places to be. No photograph is worth risking your life for.’
Several people were injured after Storm Eleanor tore down trees. West Mercia Police said one was hurt by a falling tree on the A46 in Ashton- under- Hill, Worcestershire, while a man was hospitalised in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, after his car was hit. In Christchurch, Dorset, two people escaped after a tree came crashing down on the windscreen of their Ford Focus. The driver was arrested for drug-driving.
On the River Eden in Carlisle, Cumbria, a pensioner used her dog lead to stop a woman from being dragged away in icy water.
Last night, the Environment Agency said there were still 120 flood alerts and 17 flood warnings.
Power cuts hit 20,000 homes in Northern Ireland and 2,500 from Cornwall to the Midlands.
In France, a skier died after being hit by a tree during a storm at Morillon in the Haute-Savoie region of the Alps. Trains were derailed in Germany and Switzerland which also suffered power cuts, blocked roads and flooding.