More than a million homes were left without power after Storm Eunice brought chaos to roads and rail and damaged homes and landmarks across Britain.
On Friday night, there were fears that the disruption brought by the record-breaking storm could last into next week, with high winds set to hamper recovery efforts. The first fatalities were emerging, with three motorists reported to have died.
Hundreds of thousands of homes were without power and, while more than 700,000 have been reconnected, 435,000 remained in the dark as night fell. Some outages could last 48 hours and potentially longer in rural areas, the Government was told.
On Friday night, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, warned that “there will be more disruption to come”. He said helicopters and generators had been deployed to help people cope with the aftermath.
Eunice is one of the strongest storms to hit the UK in more than 30 years, with a gust of 122mph recorded at the Needles on the Isle of Wight – provisionally declared a record for England.
The storm caused significant damage to the O2 arena in south-east London, with parts of the structure’s canvas roof ripped off and carried into the Thames and 1,000 people evacuated from the building.
