This was the scene at a Bristol car dealership today after Storm Eunice caused scaffolding to collapse on as many as 15 new cars and caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage.
The managing director of Roadworthy Suzuki in Fishponds said he was only thankful no one was hurt in the incident, which saw three-storeys high scaffolding come crashing down outside the front door of the showroom, just ten seconds after a customer had walked in.
Steve Hoare said they were tidying up as best they could, but the collapse would impact their business as it had damaged so many cars in the forecourt. The scaffolding came crashing down in the strongest of the Storm Eunice winds around lunchtime at the dealership on Fishponds Road.
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“We’re just thankful - it was a blessing that no one has been hurt at all, especially when a customer had come through the doors just ten seconds before,” Mr Hoare said.
“It’s caused substantial damage. We’re talking three storeys of scaffolding and it’s come down on something like 12 to 15 cars and just crushed some of them. Obviously they are all damaged. It’s devastating - we were just getting back to normal after Covid and getting business back on track, and now this. It’s going to be hard to replace those cars,” he added.
"We don't know, but we're looking at maybe an estimated amount of damage of £150,000 to £200,000 here," said Mr Hoare. “The main priority is that no one was hurt.
"We have had lots of support, people saw it on Facebook and have been coming in offering to help us. We’re just tidying up really - that’s all we can do - and wait for the insurance company to arrive to sort things out,” he added.
Bristol and the wider South West region was battered by wind gusts of up to 90mph as the powerful storm blew through, uprooting trees and ripping roof tiles and debris from buildings in its path of destruction, with hundreds of people in the city left without power.
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Avon and Somerset declared a "major incident" after the Met Office issued a rare red weather warning for the region. Police said the force and fire crews took hundreds of calls from across the Avon and Somerset area reporting fallen trees in the road, power and telecoms lines down and some structural damage to buildings and outbuildings.
There have been no reports of casualties in the West Country but three people elsewhere in the UK have died in storm-related incidents. A woman in London died when a tree fell onto her car, a man in his 20s died in Hampshire after a collision also involving a fallen tree, and a man in his 50s in Merseyside died after flying debris struck his van windscreen.
Follow our live blog for the latest weather updates as Storm Eunice sweeps UK
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