A STABLE block was hurled into the front of a house on the Channel Islands as Britain was battered by Storm Katie.
The building, which was empty at the time, was picked up by winds of up to 90mph and smashed into the house in Alderney in the early hours of Easter Monday. It was the second time the stable had blown away, but on the previous occasion, a horse was inside it.
Homeowner Sue Abel said she “heard a crack on the other side of the house” about half an hour after midnight.
The stables had travelled about 50 metres from a field next door, Mrs Abel said.
She added: “I’ve never known the winds, in the 10 years I’ve been here, [to be] at that strength.”
The emergency services arrived on the scene soon afterwards but the stable building was left in place on Monday as the winds were “still quite brisk”, she said.
Bill Abel added: “We heard something banging outside the house at about 12.30am and we looked out window but everything seemed okay.
“Then we saw police lights outside the front windows and looked out and saw that the stable block from the field opposite our house had landed in the garden.
“It actually looks like it came very near to catching the edge of our roof and lifting that off. The first time this happened, five or six years ago, a storm blew the stable over the wall and into the road. That time there had been a horse in it, fortunately there wasn’t a horse in it this time.
So really, we are fortunate nothing worse happened. You have to look on the bright side in this sort of situation.”
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There was some damage to the front of the house, including a number of smashed windows.
Storm Katie, the 11th named storm of this winter, caused damage across England, south Wales and the Channel Islands on Monday, with gusts of 106mph recorded at The Needles, off the Isle of Wight.
