Fresh storm alerts in wake of Eunice
More than 120,000 homes spend two nights without electricity after felled trees crash on to power cables
BRITAIN was braced for winds of 70mph today as parts of the country were still cleaning up from Storm Eunice and tens of thousands of homes spent a second night without power.
Yellow weather warnings are in place for today across most of England outside the North East for wind and for heavy rain across Manchester, the Pennines and the North West. Snow is also forecast across parts of the Midlands and the southern Pennines.
At least four people are reported to have died in the UK and Ireland due to the record-breaking storm, while early estimates put the financial cost of repairs at £360 million.
Among those killed during the storm was Jack Bristow, 23, who died when a 40ft tree fell on the truck in which he was travelling in Alton, Hampshire.
The tree crushed the Mercedes Sprinter in which Mr Bristow was a passenger while its driver, also in his 20s, was taken to Southampton Hospital.
Mr Bristow’s family and friends have set up a GoFundMe page in memory of the father-of-one who was “loved by everyone he met.”
A friend said: “It’s hard to find the right words to say. Jack always had a smile on his face. A great lad with a big heart. Always happy to help others. He will be missed by so many of us.”
More than a million properties suffered power cuts on Friday night as high winds and falling trees wreaked havoc on electricity cables.
By Saturday afternoon the majority of homes had had power restored, but in the South West of England and South Wales 60,000 customers remained without power, while in the South East the figure was 27,500.
For some, the destruction was worse than others. Dominic Good, 57, was in the middle of a work conference call at his house on Friday morning when he was interrupted by an “almighty crash” as a huge oak tree smashed into his family home. The father-of-two said his family were “very lucky” that no one was injured after the huge tree crashed through the roof of their detached house near Brentwood, Essex.
“A gust just snapped the base of the massive oak tree in our garden that is probably around 400 years old,” he said.
“The whole tree fell on the northwest corner of the house and the roof took the brunt of it. The roof is pretty much destroyed and my son’s and my daughter’s bedrooms are filled with rubble.”
Mr Good said his wife Emma, his 23-year-old son Sven and his son’s girlfriend, Anna Parnanen, had been in different rooms when the tree fell. His son’s car was also “completely crushed” by its branches.
Mr Good added: “My son was in the room directly below (where the tree hit), so he actually witnessed it.
“He just grabbed his laptop and the dog and ran out of the room.”
After the scare, Mr Good said his family headed to their local for a drink.
“We stood outside looking at what the storm had done, and my dad had a tear in his eye – and then we did the very British thing, and said, ‘Let’s go to the pub for a pint’,” he told the BBC.
Insurance industry sources put the early estimate for the bill from Storm Eunice at £360 million, based on the combined cost of the damage caused by Storms Ciara and Denis in 2020. A more precise figure is unlikely to be available for several weeks as insurers carry out detailed assessments of the damage.
The gale-force winds, which peaked at a record-breaking 122mph on the Isle of Wight, also caused disruption on railway networks, although operators expected service to be restored quickly.
Dozens of trees were blown on to railway lines and at Banbury station the roof of a building was ripped off and strewn across the track.
Network Rail also released several images of garden trampolines that had been blown on to the railway lines.
Despite the disruption, train operators were hopeful of restoring a good service by tomorrow. A spokesman for GWR said: “We are expecting to run a robust service on Sunday.”
However, repair work will depend on weather conditions and advice remains in place requesting that passengers check services before they travel.
Among the most striking images of the storm was the dent in the roof of the O2 Arena. Large sections of its white covering were torn off, with the interior of the dome visible from above.
The venue said it would remain closed for the weekend, and at least one concert has been postponed. Concerts due to take place soon include rapper Dave on Monday and Tuesday and UB40 on Friday. It is not yet clear whether the events will go ahead.
Meanwhile, in Wells, Somerset, the spire and weather vane of St Thomas Church, a Grade II*-listed building, were blown off and smashed to the ground. Conservationists managed to collect the shattered pieces of the midVictorian spire, although it was unclear whether it could be rebuilt.
James Preston, of Sally Strachey Historic Conservation, said: “Lots of nice, fancy ironwork had been broken, so to stop people taking bits for their mantelpiece we put it all inside the church. ” Mr Preston said he and his colleagues had been deluged with emails about similar damage after the storm.
“Unfortunately, with historic buildings, that’s the way it is. Bits of stone drop off every day, let alone in a storm.”
Many fallen trees are likely to have been of distinguished age and height.
The National Trust had warned in December that the increasing strength of winter storms was destroying dozens of historic trees. It was assessing the damage to its estates yesterday, and has reported the loss of a 300-year-old beech tree at Stowe Landscape Gardens that dated to the 17th century.
Three other deaths have been confirmed in the UK and Ireland. A woman in her 30s died when a tree fell on a car in Haringey, north London, on Friday while a man in his 50s died in Netherton, Merseyside, after debris struck the windscreen of a vehicle he in.
In Ireland, Billy Kinsella, 59, was killed by a falling tree as he removed another from a road near his home in Co Wexford.