Closing summary
At least seven people were killed and dozens injured as Storm Ciarán battered north-west Europe with torrential rain and winds of up to 124mph, damaging homes and forcing schools to close and airlines and train companies to halt services.
Almost 20,000 UK homes and businesses were without power at lunchtime, with emergency grid maintenance teams mobilised from around the UK to help reconnect homes in the south of England. There remained 9,000 properties without power this evening in south-west England, according to the National Grid.
The Energy Networks Association, which represents power network operators in the UK and Ireland, said 107,000 customers were reconnected so far today “in very challenging weather conditions”.
Landowners in England have claimed that farmers and rural communities are “unfairly shouldering the burden” of flooding, blaming “years of poor management” by the Environment Agency.
A national headwind cycling event in the Netherlands was called off as Storm Ciarán battered the country’s coast. Despite the founder, Robrecht Stoekenbroek, telling media yesterday that people were “desperately enthusiastic” for the eighth race – which can only happen in high winds – conditions were too much even for Dutch cyclists.
The port of Dover was briefly closed this morning, and ferries across the Channel to Calais cancelled, as Storm Ciarán blew gusts of more than 70mph off the coast of Kent.
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Sophie van Hensbergen, 36, who lives with her husband Driky, 35 and their two sons aged one and three in Loders, west Dorset, said the storm tore off their chimney.
The family were getting ready for bed at just after 11pm last night when the house “shook in the wind”, van Hensbergen said.
There was a very, very powerful whistling sound and the windows looked as though we were in a carwash. The noise lasted about 30 seconds. We have a fireplace in our bedroom and suddenly soot and brick and whatever else was falling into our bedroom. We were there with our one-year-old son so it was quite scary.
Our neighbour was in the garden and called up to us saying he thought we’d been struck by lightning and that our whole chimney was in his garden. But when Driky went out to take a look we hadn’t been struck by lightning as nothing was on fire. There was a very clear line of destruction that goes from the house opposite which had their thatched roof torn off one end to us and three little cottages which have all had the ridge of the roof taken off.
One nearby family were unable to locate their trampoline which had been lifted up in the severe winds, and a nearby ash landed on the school roof which had remained closed today. Van Hensbergen added: “In our neighbour’s garden there’s a big oak tree and it looks as if a giant has used a chainsaw to rip off all the branches.”
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