No kidding! Goats head for town to f lee Storm Gareth
SHOPPERS were left bemused by goats who caused mayhem in a town centre as they tried to escape the wrath of Storm Gareth yesterday.
The Kashmiri mountain goats normally live on Great Orme, a rocky headland overlooking Llandudno in North Wales. But gale-force winds forced them downhill, where the weather is calmer.
Resident Gillian Townsend, 38, said: ‘It was quite funny – they decided to herd into the middle of the road, stopping a car and a taxi.’
She then saw the goats ‘ galloping up Lloyd Street’ in the town centre.
It came as up to 1,000 tons of the Jurassic Coast plunged on to a beach as the storm tore across Britain.
Cliffs made famous by the hit TV series, Broadchurch, were hit by huge rock falls at West Bay in Dorset.
Sam Scriven, from the Jurassic Coast Trust, which manages the cliffs, said emergency services used infra-red cameras and sniffer dogs to check the rubble after the rock fall.
The Met Office said Storm Gareth, which struck on Tuesday, brought gusts of 70mph to many areas yesterday. The strongest recorded wind was 75mph in Machrihanish, Argyll.
Emma Smith, of the Met Office, said: ‘The next few days will continue to feature unsettled weather. It won’t be until we hit Sunday that the winds ease off.’
In North Wales, roads were closed due to fallen trees, while ferries between Holyhead and Dublin suffered delays and cancellations.
On Tuesday night, six crew members were airlifted from a stricken French fishing boat off Land’s End in Cornwall in 20ft waves and storm-force winds which rescuers described as ‘atrocious’.
In Inverness, a practice flight by the Coastguard team turned into a live operation when they saved a dog stranded on a 200ft-high ledge. The cavachon called Ben was spotted at midday yesterday and winched to safety.
Three climbers who died in an avalanche on Ben Nevis were part of a Swiss climbing group.
The two French and two Swiss climbers – all members of the Sion Swiss Alpine Club – were on Britain’s highest peak on Tuesday when they were ‘wiped out’. Swiss survivor Mathieu Biselx said: ‘We weren’t very high up and suddenly we heard a noise. We looked round and two seconds later we were carried away by heavy, compact snow.’