Winds of more than 160kph have battered the UK as the worst storm of the winter caused the death of a woman killed by falling debris and travel chaos across the nation.
Storm Doris had raged in from the west overnight, bringing freezing temperatures with it and prompting Met Office forecasters to label the low pressure system a “weather bomb,” meaning the barometer dropped by more than 24 millibars over 24 hours.
There was unpredictable danger for drivers who contended with falling trees and black ice, and train cancelations at stations from London to Birmingham. Pedestrians suffered too, with some people blown across pavements like rag dolls.
Photo: AFP
What some called “Doris Day” saw dozens of planes grounded at Heathrow, the port of Liverpool closed and major road bridges shut to traffic — including the Queen Elizabeth II bridge at the Dartford Crossing linking Kent and Essex, the M6 Thelwall viaduct in Cheshire and the A14 Orwell bridge in Suffolk.
The most serious incident came in the West Midlands, where a 29-year-old woman died when she was hit by a piece of roof the “size of a coffee table” in Wolverhampton city center.
A piece of wood about 1m-long and 30cm-wide could be seen behind police cordons after the woman suffered “very serious head injuries,” the West Midlands ambulance service said.
Thames Valley police were investigating if a collapsed school ceiling in Milton Keynes, which resulted in a girl receiving a life-threatening injury, was caused by Storm Doris.
In a similar incident, a man in central London was taken to hospital with head injuries after Scotland Yard said its officers were called to reports of “debris falling from the roof of a building” in Victoria Street near Cardinal Place shopping center at 3pm.
The London ambulance service said it attended 17 storm-related incidents, including road traffic collisions, wall and building collapses and trees being blown over. It treated several people for head injuries caused by falling debris.
A woman in her 60s was treated for a serious head injury after being hit by a carport roof in Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent, where winds also hampered political activists getting out the vote in the Stoke Central byelection.
In Spalding, Lincolnshire, a driving instructor had a narrow escape when a 12m tree crashed down in front of the car he was driving.
“I feel very lucky that I managed to stop before I became a pancake,” Paul Smith said.
An Icelandair flight was forced to declare a fuel emergency after failing to land at both Manchester and Liverpool airports because of the high winds. It finally landed at the third time of asking in Manchester with its tanks running low.
A top wind speed of 151kph was recorded in Capel Curig, north Wales, but the port of Liverpool said it closed after 160kph gusts.
In Wisbech, Cambridgeshire a doubledecker bus was blown on to its side at about 1pm, according to an East of England ambulance service spokesman.
Paramedics assessed 15 people at the scene on Lynn Road, but no one involved was believed to be in a serious or life-threatening condition.
There were reports of trees felled by the winds across the country, with one trapping a man in a van on the A374 in Cornwall, and others collapsing on to houses in London and Wigan.
In Scotland, snowfall closed the M80 in both directions, and led to schools shutting and the cancelation of some ferry services. In Ireland, almost 46,000 households woke up to no electricity after violent gusts battered large swaths of the country throughout the night.
Heading into Thursday evening, as Storm Doris began to move out into the North Sea, Met Office meteorologist Emma Sharples said the winds would begin to decrease.
“Then the focus turns more to it turning cold, frosty and icy overnight, with wintry showers around as well,” she said.
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