By Tsvetelina Stancheva and Bianca Jashnani
Storm Franklin is the third storm to hit the UK in the past week, ahead of storm Dudley and Eunice.
The storms have brought high winds and heavy rains, which has caused flooding and left many households partially destroyed. Three people were killed in the UK and several were left injured by falling trees and flying debris.
Electricity cuts and weak signals
The storms had left more than 1.4 million homes without power, even though most have been recovered there are still around 12,000 with electricity cut.
“So many houses had no electricity especially in this cold nasty weather, and are still waiting for the electricity to be restored,” said 24-year-old Maya Ahmed, waiter at a local cafe on Holloway Road.
“But it is so difficult with consecutive storms in the UK, with such strong winds. Not only has the electricity been affected but also a lot of poles and wires have been damaged which has caused my internet and network to not work properly. But it is a slow process to fix all this because too many areas have been affected by the storm.”
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses still have no broadband yet but according to Energy Networks Association thousands of engineers “are continuing to work to fix damage to the power network and reconnect customers as quickly as they safely can”.
Travel Chaos
Due to the atrocious weather conditions, a lot of flights, trains and tubes were suspended.
“I was supposed to travel to Leeds this weekend to spend time with my friends, but the train got cancelled at the last minute due to the storm. I only got to know about this when I got to the station,” said Mahek Kalwani, 19, law student at UCL.
“The TfL workers at the Kings’ Cross St Pancras station mentioned that a lot of tracks had fallen trees on them and the others had water filled due to the heavy rains.”
With wind speeds going as high as 122mph, amber and red weather warnings were given out in multiple locations. High wind speeds is one of the reasons why the storms were so intense and caused a lot of damage.
“I witnessed a woman with a stroller and a baby fighting with the crazy wind. They lost a lot of their belongings due to the stormy weather and it was so uncomfortable to watch,” said David Dimitrov, 23, a student at City, University of London.
“This is why you should stay at home if you don’t have any urgent things to do. All these storms showed us that you cannot win against nature, it is too powerful.”
The forecast is predicting another (fourth) storm, named Gladys, potentially hitting the UK on Thursday. According to the Met Office forecast, storm Gladys will bring stronger winds to the UK and even snow.
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