Storm Eunice rips up Wiltshire

Roads were blocked by trees torn from their roots by the fearsome gale which reportedly gusted at up to 80mph in the south of the county, tiles were torn from rooftops and emergency teams dealt with hundreds of emergencies.

Wiltshire Council said this afternoon: “There have been around 600 incidents reported and our staff are prioritising and working their way through them.

“They will be working until 7pm tonight and then starting again at 7am tomorrow morning. By Monday we will have a full picture of the impact of the storm and will be able to do a proper thank you to everyone involved.”

The Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service reported: “Between 8am and 5.30pm today, over 300 emergency calls were received by Fire Control, with many reporting fallen trees, fallen power cables and building damage.”

The storm, which is reported to have reached wind speeds of 122mph over the Isle of Wight, has brought down power lines across the county, leaving countless households without electricity.

Eunice took the power out across the county

On the roads, fallen trees brought chaos – and tragedy at Farleigh Wick, near Bradford-on-Avon, where a car collided with a tree, trapping three and leaving one of them seriously injured.

A police spokesman said: “Emergency services were called to an incident involving a car and a fallen tree in Farleigh Wick at approximately 12.20pm. A road closure was put in place while the three occupants of the vehicle were rescued by the fire service.

“One person was taken to Southmead Hospital, another occupant was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary and the driver of the vehicle was taken to Southmead Hospital. He is believed to be in a serious condition.”

Thankfully, and somewhat miraculously, no deaths in Wiltshire due to Storm Eunice have been reported yet.

But Eunice blasted every town in the county.

In Marlborough, a mighty fir tree which had stood for decades in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church, came crashing down, blocking the High Street opposite The Marlborough pub.

In Devizes, police shut the main road outside the HQ of the Wiltshire Force when another tree fell across it, bringing a power line down with it.

In Trowbridge, the gale ripped a section of the roof off the Castle Place shopping centre in Wiltshire. Following the incident, which left debris in the roadway this morning, emergency services have blocked section of Trowbridge town centre.

In another part of the town, the largest tree in Trowbridge cemetery, a 100ft beech, came to its death as it piled over and smashed fences around it. In Bradford-on-Avon, another felled tree brought down power lines.

At Milkhouse Water near Pewsey the roof of a stables was blown off by Eunice and swept up into a tree.

Passer-by Emma Rowe said: “It is a stable roof, and yes it was definitely Eunice. Luckily all the horses where in the fields, thank goodness! Not sure if the rest of the stables will also be gone before this is over sadly.”

And on back roads and in villages everywhere, Eunice left destruction in her wake as she tore through the land with a fury – bringing trees down that blocked the rail lines outside Bradford-on-Avon and causing rail chiefs to cancel scores of scheduled services for fear of the danger to life that the weathermen had warned about.

It was a day that all who experienced it will always remember – and if global warming was a cause of Eunice’s wild intensity, it will be a day that will dwell deep in the concerns of the county’s authorities as they, and we, wonder: whatever next?

For a full report on the day of Storm Eunice, go to: https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/19934373.storm-eunice-wiltshire-live-updates-extreme-weather-hits/