Britain gets a battering
Roof ripped from flats as 70mph gales lash country
A HUGE section of roof was torn off a building and sent crashing into a busy high street as gales battered the country last night.
Footage showed onlookers sifting through the rubble after the incident in Slough, Berkshire – but police do not believe anyone was seriously hurt.
It is believed the roof, which appeared to have landed on a white van, was ripped off a block of flats housing around 200 residents. A spokesman for Slough Borough Council said: ‘Our specialist officers have been on site and are assisting emergency services to ensure the safety of the debris and buildings and clearing the street.’
Yellow warnings were issued by the Met Office yesterday as up to an inch-and-a-half of rain and high winds lashed parts of the country.
Following Storm Brendan’s battering at the start of the week, the latest low pressure system brought gusts of up to 50mph inland, hitting 70mph in coastal areas.
The South East was the worsthit part of the country, where more than an inch of rain was expected to fall between 1pm yesterday and 9am this morning. Forecasters said conditions were actually worse than they had been during Storm Brendan, which forced airlines to divert flights scheduled to land at Gatwick on Monday evening.
The storm – whose strongest gust of 87mph was recorded in
South Uist in the Outer Hebrides – had moved beyond Scotland by yesterday morning.
Yesterday trees falling on the lines caused travel disruption in Hampshire, while Great Northern said a temporary speed restriction of 50mph was put in place between Cambridge North and King’s Lynn.
Motorbikes, cyclists and cars towing caravans were banned from the 1,500ft-long Britannia Bridge, which links the island of Anglesey and mainland Wales, due to the winds. Around 150 homes near Penzance, Cornwall, were blacked out by a power cut when trees came down on overhead cables and a 50-mile stretch of the county was put on flood alert. Properties were also flooded in the Somerset village of Dunkerton.
Coastguards issued a safety warning, urging people to avoid beaches, piers and headlands in case they were swept away by huge waves.
However, conditions are expected to improve in the second half of the week, bringing drier, brighter weather to parts of the country.