A road being cleared of fallen trees in Sussex
(Picture: Twitter / @firerescueuk)Firefighters took hundreds of calls on Sunday as a storm battered London, including about flooding across the capital as well as fallen trees and telephone wires.
The London Fire Brigade took more than 780 calls on Sunday, not all of them weather related, as strong winds and heavy rains hit the capital.
The Brigade saw “a large spike” in calls between 5pm and 7pm, when the storm was happening with 5x more calls than the 5-year average between 5pm and 6pm.
It took 84 calls to flooding, 105 calls to fallen trees, 11 to objects fallen or in a precarious position and 6 other weather-related calls.
Among the destruction caused by the short-lived storm include the beer garden of Croydon’s Forestdale Arms being torn down, and a collapsed brick wall in Islington’s Hungerford Road.
Dramatic footage showed Londoners running for cover from the elements.
A London Fire Brigade spokesman said it had “calls to a brick wall on Hungerford Road in Islington which collapsed after being damaged by the storm, multiple calls to flooding across London, trees and telephone wires in precarious positions and a large corrugated roof which had blown into the rear of a building in Croydon damaging the brick work and leaving debris in a precarious position”.
Wow, that was quite a #storm in London earlier. Quite sure I saw a tornado go through North London and there's flash floods near Kings Cross pic.twitter.com/G7gQFH7RAA
— Sarah (@Blonde_Sazzle) October 23, 2022
They added: “The Brigade introduced batch mobilisation, meaning calls where there was a risk to life were prioritised and crews attended other calls as non-emergencies when they could.
“It’s introduced so all the Brigade’s resources aren’t tied up dealing with a spate of non-emergency calls in one area.”
Charity Fire Rescue UK, which covers London and the South-East, said it was called to assist Sussex Police with removing fallen trees from a major road after the downpour.
Trains were cancelled on some routes including on Southeastern, and London Overground services were also partly suspended due to “obstructions on the track" at West Croydon and in Theobalds Grove.
Flooding in #Peckham #Storm #Flood #London pic.twitter.com/gaeOYqgRWV
— Suki (@suki_b) October 23, 2022
Heathrow Airport also experienced delayed flights due to the weather. The Met Office had put in place a yellow storm warning covering London until 5am Monday.
The Environment Agency has put in place nine possible flood warnings across the country after the heavy rain, including at Chertsey Bourne in Berkshire and Surrey, and Christchurch Harbour in Dorset.
The Met Office predicts a mild week for London after the passing of the storm, but changeable and windy at times.
After a mostly dry start with bright spells, clouds will increase throughout Monday as blustery showers develop, forecasters said.
Showers will tend to die out by late afternoon with a maximum temperature of 17C.
