Wind leaves thousands without power in England

Stormy weather has left th ousands of homes without power and transport networks in chaos amid battering winds and severe flood warnings.
Western Power Distribution said 5,000 properties were still without power in the South West after 39,000 homes had power restored overnight.
A spokesman for the company said 75mph-80mph winds caused "airborne debris" to fly into overhead lines.

A spokesman for Western Power Distribution said around 200 engineers have been working through the night to repair damage caused by debris being blown into overhead lines by strong winds.
"Over the last 12 hours or so 44,000 customers in the South West have been off supply at some point but we've managed to restore it to all but 5,000 homes," he said.

"It's an extremely exceptional event. We have new staff being drafted in from nearby to replace our teams this morning. We have a constant approach to this because of the ongoing strong winds."
A forecaster at the Met Office said the winds in the South West are likely to "continue along a similar sort of strength" into today, and people can expect weather in other areas to be "much of the same".
It issued "be prepared" amber warnings for strong winds across southern England and Wales.
"The band of rain which is moving across from the South West will continue its journey north-eastwards during the course of the night, with fragmented outbreaks of rain - still pretty heavy - following on behind.

"It will continue to be very windy. We can expect to see gusts of 60mph-70mph quite widely across parts of South Wales, Devon and Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, those sorts of areas.

Sourced from: MSN News.