A Weekend of storms battles homes and causes £1 million worth of damage
Although it looks as though the weather has eased up, I am writing this as the office is besieged by rain. You can't see out of the window for the torrential sideways rain.
Today's newspapers are 'a wash' with stories from the weekend's weather. 100 mph gale force winds battered the country yesterday as the worst storm of the year to date made its way all over the country.
Properties were damaged and trees and branches came down causing havoc. Flood warnings were in place all over the country, with 35 still in place yesterday; 18 in Southern England, 11 in the South West and 6 in Wales. There were an additional 97 'flood watch' alerts too, across the UK.
In West Sussex there were two reported lightening strikes that the Fire and Rescue Service had to deal with. A woman in Suffolk was taken to hospital after her car was struck by a tree and emergency services were called to a number of incidences where roads were flooded, trees came down and tiles were blown off roofs. A tornado was also recorded in Essex on Saturday, which caused damage to homes. Flying debris hurled into cars, smashing windows and panels.
The weather was also attributed to the deaths of four teenagers in Birmingham who crashed their car early on Saturday morning.
As predicted the surface water we mentioned in our post on Friday, caused damage to fifty homes in the South West of England and Wales. The continuous rain and gale force winds meant that the rain water had nowhere to go and just kept coming.
Insurers are likely to face a bill of around £1 million for the damage caused by this weekend's flooding. This compared to the storms of 2007, when the total damage was estimated at £3 billion.
The unsettled weather will continue throughout the week, bringing with it more strong winds and rain. The total cost to insurers will undoubtedly rise as more people realise the full scale of the damage caused by the flooding and severe gales.
The weekends weather beats down against Shoreham Beach on Saturday
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