OCTOBER 1987: THE GREAT STORM

OK... so it wasn’t actually a hurricane as it turned out - apparently that has to originate in the tropics - but the county was subjected to hurricane-force winds as millions of trees were ripped up, falling through homes, cars and blocking roads as they came down.

An estimated £1 billion of damage was caused.

It was one of the most traumatic weather events in modern UK history.

The early hours of October 16 would redefine our landscape such was the devastation so many areas felt.

At least 22 people were killed in England and France including some in Kent. Sevenoaks famously lost the trees which give it its name, while off the coast, pity the poor folk on the cross-Channel ferry which was hit by a wave which nearly toppled it over and caused such damage to vehicles on board it took three days to remove the wreckage. Another Sealink ferry, the Hengist, was blown from its mooring at Folkestone, and was beached further down the coast for a week.

Winds reached 110mph and no part of the county escaped.

For those who lived through it, it was a night never to forget. For Michael Fish, the weather forecaster that night who dismissed a viewer’s concern about high winds, it was a career-defining moment.

Ever since then, the Met Office has not been shy in issuing weather warnings.

Just three years later, and often forgotten, another major storm hit the south east on January 25, 1990.

Schools and colleges in the county were closed early as the winds whipped up.

As it took place during the day, it claimed close to 100 lives, with winds in the county reaching speeds of 88mph.