Ferocious winds leave trail of destruction
Published 5 Jan 2012 16:30
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HIGH winds are continuing to buffet Reading - uprooting trees, damaging property and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
Residents in All Saints Gardens off Tilehurst Road, west Reading, woke today to find a pile of rubble outside their apartments when a 15 foot long section of wall collapsed and crashed down onto a lawn.
Neighbour Roman Zagros, who lives in a third floor flat, said: "The wind has been so strong - up here you hear eventhe slightest gust of wind and last night it was horrible. It's lucky the wall didn't fall down in the day or it could have killed someone. My neighbour's lucky it didn't crash through his window."
Alastair McTegart from Tilehurst Road said: "It's been nuts - there were a few houses with For Sale signs on them last week but they seem to have blown away now and a big bit of wood has appeared in my garden."
On Tuesday severe winds uprooted trees in Kiln Road and Gravel Hill in Emmer Green, Chestnut Walk by Reading Prison and Butts Hill Woodley and caused disruption in villages around Reading where they brought down power lines , leaving around 5,000 homes without electricity across Spencers Wood, Riseley, Swallowfield and Arborfield.
Southern Electric had restored power to the majority of homes by Tuesday evening and told The Chronicle it was confident the remainder would be back online by the end of yesterday.
Rail services were also affected by the storm with a Basingstoke-Reading train hitting a fallen tree at around 6.30am on Tuesday. No-one was injured but the train was delayed for around an hour.
*A TILEHURST couple had a lucky escape this morning when a 50ft tree came smashing down and narrowly missed the side of their house.
Brigid Parkes of Oak Tree Road, was getting up at 8am when she watched in disbelief as the ash tree plummeted down under pressure from strong winds - missing her car and the overhead phone line by inches, before landing in their garden parallel to neighbouring Elstree Close.
The 58-year-old said: "I could hear that the wind was getting stronger and stronger and the trees around the house were creaking, and then there was this crack and the most hideous thud as the tree came down. I thought straight away that it had landed on the car and ran to the window to check, but luckily it had just missed it."
Her husband, Colin, 63, who was eating his breakfast in the kitchen at the time, said: "I heard this almighty crack and Brigid came running down the stairs to tell me what had happened. It's so lucky it did not fall on anyone or anything as it would have done some serious damage. But I'm taking it as a warning and we are going to get rid of the rest of the tree, I don't think we'd be that lucky again."
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 05 Jan 12
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