Homes hit as freak storm sweeps Vale (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Homes hit as freak storm sweeps Vale

HOMES in the Vale were struck by lightning and others flooded as freak weather conditions brought havoc to the area at the weekend.

Ten houses in Drakes Broughton were struck by lightning on Saturday afternoon with firefighters from Worcester and Pershore being called out to deal with the incidents which caused damage to roofs, television aerials and a nearby telephone mast.

Eight homes on Church Row in Pershore were flooded and Evesham firefighters were called out to Chadbury Road in Lenchwick on Friday after lightening struck a telegraph pole on the street, setting it alight.

Crews from Evesham were also called out to the homes in Drakes Broughton the following day and had to use special equipment to pump the water.

The properties affected were on Croome Close, Huntsman Close, Coachman Close and Shrubbery Road.

Lee Wilson of Croome Close was working at the time the lightning struck. He said: "A bolt of lightning hit the roof of the house and broke the chimney, which ended up in the back garden.

"There were bricks all over the place and all of our electrical equipment like the computer and the television were blown.

"Luckily there were no people in the house at the time as my sister and I were working."

Bill Perrins senior officer attending the incident, said: "We received a call from a member of the public after their house had been struck by lightning on Saturday afternoon.

"The lightning had hit the television aerial and when we arrived on the scene we dealt with the original incident and then with a succession of other similar incidents in the area nearby after neighbours had come to tell us that their houses had been struck too.

"Two properties had holes in their roof and the others had varying degrees of damage including power sockets being blown and computers being overloaded due to the power surge.

"Thankfully there were no fires and no injuries, the work carried out by the crews was mainly salvage, including protecting the buildings from the rain."

In an earlier incident caused by the freak weather on Friday evening, residents in Weston Subedge were plunged into darkness as they suffered an electrical blackout followed by a brown out.

A brown out occurs when the electrical voltage is of an insufficient level to correctly power appliances, which can potentially lead to the items being damaged.

Resident Roy Jenkins said: "Voltages as low as that on a Friday evening can cause damage or in certain circumstances, overheat stalled motors leading to a risk of fire. Our cooker was rattling like a percussion section.

"This is the second brown out in the five years we have lived in the village and it was not corrected until I had phoned the authorities to warn them of the low voltage."