Mum’s shock as ‘half of house on the floor'
A mum has spoken of her shock after strong winds created by Storm Arwen caused the outer wall of her home to collapse.
Sunderland has been battling wild gusts and icy weather as Storm Arwen hit the city this weekend, causing travel disruption, property damage and the cancelling of events across Wearside.
Arareredwarningforwind was in place from 3pm on Friday (November 26) until 2am on Saturday (November 27), when it was downgraded back to amber.
A mum-of-three has describedthemomentthestrong gusts caused the outer wall on her house to collapse.
Claire LePaul, who lives in Hendon, was feeding her 21-week-old daughter Olivia when she heard a loud bang at around 3am on Saturday (November 28).
Claire, 27, said: "The windows were rattling, so that obviouslybuildsuptheanxietyin aperson.Iwasfeedingmylittle girlandIheardamassivebang.
"Ithoughtmyfour-year-old had fallen out of bed. I got my husband to go and check him – it wasn’t him.”
Claire’s husband Ian then went outside to check if part of the roof had fallen off, but saw that bricks from the outer wall of the house had collapsed.
Claire said she rushed to moveDaniel,fouand15-monthold Kaleb downstairs.
"Halfofmyhousewasonthe floor,” said Claire.
"I brought the kids downstairs.
"Itwasquitescary,knowing that the rest of my house could potentially fall in.”
Shecontinued:"Itwasquite scary, especially with three children in the house that are quite young.
"I was scared it could fall in on them.
"My four-year-old was a little bit shaken and was asking what was going on, but he was alright, he wasn’t scared.”
Claire, who is originally from London, but moved to Sunderland 10 years ago, added: “I’ve never seen a storm in Sunderland that’s that bad.
"Clearly Storm Arwen is an angry person.”