Weather: Police Calm Furious Air Travellers

Residents faced Christmas without power and travellers remained stuck at airports and stations after storms caused havoc across much of Britain.

The death toll from the violent weather rose to five and people heading home for the holiday had to battle with difficult conditions on roads and railways.

Some of the worst chaos was at Gatwick airport in West Sussex where a power outage at North Terminal led to cancellations and delays.

Police officers stepped in to calm passengers as they demanded to know more information about their plans.

Although Christmas Day is expected to see calmer weather, more storms are expected on Friday.

Tens of thousands of households were without power after Monday’s downpours and strong winds.

Southern Electric restored power to 40,000 homes, but 70,000 remained without. Spokeswoman Morven Smith said it had been a “very difficult” Christmas Eve.

UK Power Networks, which delivers power to eight million customers across the South East, East and London, said trees falling on power lines had caused problems.

By 6pm on Tuesday, power was still out in more than 14,000 homes in Kent, 12,000 in Surrey and 5,000 in Sussex. 

Earlier, a number of train companies were unable to run morning services and when they did start they were subject to delays and cancellations.

Network Rail said more than 200 trees had come down on lines in the last 24 hours.

Gatwick said for the rest of the day all flights would be leaving from South Terminal. Passengers complained of a lack of information and spoke of four-hour delays.

Graziella Vella, from Kilburn, north-west London, was due to fly to Malta to spend Christmas with her family.

The 37-year-old said: “I am fuming and absolutely desperate – there has been no information at all and we can’t make alternative plans.”

An airport spokesman said the cause of the outages was flooding from the River Mole into airfield substations and North Terminal.

Efforts were being made to fix the problem as quickly as possible, the spokesman added.

Travellers on First Great Western’s service from London Paddington to Cornwall last night were left stranded at Taunton in Somerset due to signal problems.

Steven Rowe, travelling from London to Plymouth, said he was left at Taunton from 12.50am until 7.30am when he was put on a coach to Exeter.

On the roads, many major routes were flooded or blocked, with Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Cornwall among affected counties.

In Dorset fire crews had to rescue 25 people trapped in their cars by flood water.

More than 300 flood alerts and warnings remained in place.

The number of warnings – the category the Environment Agency uses to alert residents that “immediate action is required” – has jumped to 125 across the UK.

There are also 243 flood alerts, which indicate “flooding is possible, be prepared”.

The most severely affected areas remain the south west and south east where there is one “severe flood warning”.

This is for the River Mole at Leatherhead and Fetcham, Surrey, where flooding at around midnight tonight could pose a threat to life.

Surrey Fire and Rescue service has also declared a major incident in relation to the flooding in Dorking, Leatherhead and Guildford.

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Source Article from http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fire-crews-rescue-25-people-trapped-floods-072351569.html

Weather: Police Calm Furious Air Travellers