Tornado Damages Northwest London
Pastor Dale Morgan
Dec 7, 9:57 AM EST
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Tornado Damages Northwest London*
By ROBERT BARR
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) -- A tornado Thursday ripped off a section of a wall of a
northwest London house, damaged several nearby homes and injured at
least six people, authorities said.
A man was taken to a hospital with a head injury, and five other adults
were treated at the scene for minor injuries and shock, London Ambulance
Service said.
"It came from nowhere, the sky turned dark, hail started falling and
then within 10 minutes it was gone," said resident Perrin Sledge.
"A police officer told me he had a report of the tornado on his radio,
turned the corner and saw the wind whip a garbage can into another car.
He said it was like a scene from the movie 'Twister,'" Sledge said.
London Fire Brigade reported that about 100 properties were affected in
a quarter-square-mile area.
The freak storm hit just after 11 a.m. on a day of unsettled weather, as
high winds, bursts of rain and occasional hail and thunder swept across
southern England.
The tornado ripped whole sections of roof off some homes, tore tiles
from other roofs, uprooted trees and left the street strewn with debris.
One car was buried under a pile of fallen bricks, video footage from Sky
News showed.
"It was like some sort of cyclone," said Tim Klotz, a resident of the
Kensal Rise neighborhood in northwest London.
"I was actually in an attic room working at my desk on the computer and
there was heavy rain and sleet and then the wind just really changed. I
looked up through a skylight and debris was falling through the air. I
heard what seemed like large, clay dominoes falling, which I think were
roof tiles," Klotz said.
Daniel Bidgood told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that he saw a "huge
cloud rolling up the street," making a loud sound.
"I went to try to take a picture of it but a shower of debris smashed
all the windows of my house," Bidgood said.
An average of 33 tornadoes are reported annually in Britain, according
to the Tornado and Storm Research Organization.
One of the worst to hit Britain destroyed the church of St. Mary le Bow
and 600 homes in central London in 1091.
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Associated Press Writer David Stringer contributed to this report.