Storm Katie battered large parts of England, leaving flights cancelled, property damaged and chaos across the South East on Easter Sunday night. Reports in Pevensey Bay of some of the damage as people awoke on Monday morning to discover fences down, chimney pots dislodged and the 99 Bus to Hastings with a new request stop blown into a field along the Eastbourne Road..—Bay Life, 29 March 2016
People were not recording wind speeds overnight on Sunday as Storm Katie hit the Bay but as the cat flaps moved around midnight and the sound of the trees began to creak with big rushing sounds, it was obvious by midnight that we were in for a night to remember for all the wrong reasons.
This proved to be the case. As people scrolled to their social media feeds in the morning there were reports of fences down, at last one chimney pot completely removed and talk of what had happened to houses and gardens across the villages.
Storm Katie battered the country on Easter Monday . Winds of up to 106mph were recorded as motorways were closed and more than 100 flights were diverted.
The bank holiday weekend saw power cuts hit around 100,000 homes and a kayaker was missing, feared drowned, as the Met Office issued 136 flood alerts.
In the early morning gusts blew over a crane in Greenwich, London. Bent double the image has come to represent the power of what Storm Katie did to the country. A car crushed by a tree in Brighton has also gone viral, with local thoughts no doubt focused on what might have been the outcome if the storm had taken place during the day.
In Pevensey Bay, one poor pensioner lady was heard to have been in her nightwear trying to secure a door that had blown open to her lounge at 1:30am, with garden furniture wedged to secure the door to prevent the possibility of the door smashing at some point in the night.
In the same part of Pevensey Bay, the glass bus stop along the Eastbourne Road that leads into the Bay was lifted from the footings and ended up in the field behind.
If Storm Katie had been happening during the day there would clearly have been much more damage with people and vehicles moving in the locality.
By mid-day yesterday (28 March), the Eastbourne Herald was reporting that several properties damaged in Eastbourne overnight. Parts of roofs to Dunelm Mill and the David Lloyd Club had been removed and firefighters were called out to several properties during the night.
By the morning after the night before, there was already a damage limitation in operation in Pevensey Bay from the authorities concerned.
Pevensey Parish Council reported that “Storm Katie was also responsible for blowing the Eastbourne Road Bus Shelter into the field behind. The Clerk is working with the insurers to achieve a replacement”.
Ian Thomas of Pevensey Coastal Defence Ltd advised Pevensey Parish Council that “earlier plans have predictably been changed by Storm Katie and there is now a significant amount of repair work to be done ahead of the “proper” Spring tides in 10 days’ time.
“Basically the crest has been eroded along most of the frontage and needs to be reinforced in order that the fuel bowser can be moved around to support the machines.
“Because the excavator and trucks are at the Coast Road depot they are now starting here and working west. One bulldozer will stay at Norman’s Bay and restore the crest prior to moving to Beachlands and the subsequent arrival of the recycling team, probably next week.
Storm Katie on Easter Sunday night is unlikely to be forgotten soon. Credit to the people that rallied round yesterday morning to check neighbours safety and to assess the damage that had been done.
The bus shelter in the Bay that was lifted from the footings is now marked as a hazard, and given what has been said by Pevensey Parish Council, action is already underway to see that the stop can be restored as soon as is practicable.
Things could of course have been so much worse.
Credit also to Pevensey Coastal Defence Ltd for the prompt update on what is to happen in the coming weeks as a result of the damage done by Storm Katie.
