UK storms: Met Office issues 'Red Warning' for wind

 
He also announced money would be available for businesses and homeowners repairing flood-damaged property to build in new defences and said small businesses affected by flooding would get 100% relief from business rates.
 

Winds of up to 100mph are expected to batter west Wales and north-west England, with the Met Office issuing its first "red warning" of the winter.

The warning for 13:30 to 21:00 GMT means there is a "risk to life" and people should "avoid dangerous areas" with widespread damage expected.

Sixteen severe flood warnings remain for Berkshire, Surrey and Somerset.
Meanwhile, David Cameron has repeated his pledge that "money is no object in this relief effort".

 

 West Wales and north-west England are the areas likely to get hit by high-speed winds, the Met Office has said.

The Met Office said: "Winds of this strength can cause widespread structural damage, bringing down trees and also leading to loss of power supplies.

"In addition, large waves are likely to affect some coasts. The public should take action to alter their travel arrangements during this spell of storm force winds."

BBC forecaster Darren Bett told the News Channel red weather warnings were very rare. "You usually get one or two per year. It's the highest level of alert - it's very serious, it's life threatening and it means people should take action now. It does not get any worse than that," he says.
Other updates include:

• Up to 3,000 homes are without power in south and west Wales
• There are still major disruptions for several rail services, with severe delays between Reading and London due to flooding near Maidenhead
• BBC forecasters say a month's worth of rainfall is expected to fall in parts of southern England over the next few days
• The Environment Agency warns more homes will be flooded as rivers in Herefordshire and Worcestershire continue rising

Thousands of soldiers have been deployed to help the flood effort

 

 

 The severe weather has affected elderly residents in Worcester

 

Swelling flood and ground water make several roads in Shepperton impassable by car

 

Managing director of network operations at Network Rail, Robin Gisby, said it was going to be "another difficult day for commuters", and he described the landscape across southern England and the South West as an "inland sea".

He said the high winds forecast meant that trains would be running at reduced speeds in Cornwall, Devon, parts of Wales, and in the Preston area of Lancashire.

On Tuesday PM David Cameron said that money was "no object" for the flood relief effort, but Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin told ITV's Daybreak: "I don't think it's a blank cheque.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said the prime minister's pledge on Tuesday that money was "no object" to combat the flood problems did not amount to a "blank cheque" for tackling floods.

"I think what the prime minister was making very clear is that we are going to use every resource of the government and money is not the issue while we are in this relief job, in the first instance, of trying to bring relief to those communities that are affected."

And he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government would have to prepare itself for more frequent extreme weather events in the future.

Cameras have been allowed to film a Cobra emergency meeting for the first time

He said: "I don't think we can take this as a one off event. There is more extreme weather, and it's about




how you become resilient."
Meanwhile, the prime minister has chaired a meeting of Cobra in Downing Street and was told that thousands of military personnel were available at short notice to give extra support.

BBC News Channel chief political correspondent Norman Smith said Chancellor George Osborne was among those at the meeting even though he does not normally attend "to rein in any of his colleagues who suddenly thought that the coffers were open and they could help themselves".

Environment Agency chief executive Paul Leinster told the committee that water levels could rise to "higher than current levels" over the coming weekend.
He said: "Oxford to Maidenhead we think could rise over the next five days and may lead to more flooding in that area.

"Below Maidenhead, the levels are holding at the current level but potentially over the weekend and going into the beginning of next week they could rise to higher than the current levels."
The BBC's Ben Geoghegan, in Wraysbury, Berkshire, overnight, said the local primary school had been turned into "24/7 control centre" for residents affected by flooding.

Lucy Foster, who has been helping to run the operation, said the village had been "looking after itself for a long, long time and morale was getting very low, energy levels were getting low".
"Finally we've got the boys and girls that we need - we've got the Army, the police force, the fire service and getting a lot of support from them and a lot of direction from them, which is what was needed."

Our correspondent said that, with so many homes in the village evacuated, there was a real fear some of the empty properties might be looted so the Army had set up checkpoints on some roads to monitor overnight who comes and who goes.
'Unprecedented' flooding
 
More than 1,000 homes have been evacuated along the Thames after towns and villages including Wraysbury, Chertsey and Datchet were flooded.

In Datchet, more than 1,700 properties were hit by a power cut on Tuesday evening. Scottish and Southern Energy said power had been restored to all residents by 00:30 GMT although a separate problem meant about 25 properties had temporarily lost power in the early hours.

Chief Supt Matt Twist, of Surrey Police, said the flooding in the county was "unprecedented" and warned that a further 2,500 homes were at risk.

An 85-year-old resident forced to leave her bungalow in one Surrey village spent the night at an evacuation centre.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was a "terrible experience". "I want to go, I want to get out of it [community evacuation centre] really, because you can't live like this, can you?

"I know everybody's in the same boat but I can't go back home."

Further evacuations have been taking place in the Staines and Egham area. Almost 6,000 properties have been flooded altogether in the past two months.

About 100 properties remain flooded on the Somerset Levels, where extra pumps are being brought in from the Netherlands, and groundwater flooding is also expected in the coming days in Hampshire, Kent and parts of London.

As well as 16 severe flood warnings, the Environment Agency has also issued about 350 less serious flood warnings and alerts, mostly in southern England and the Midlands.
The agency said it looked "increasingly likely" there would be problems along the River Severn and River Wye.

And it said groundwater levels were so high in some parts of the country that flooding was likely to persist for weeks or even months flooding was likely to persist for weeks or even months.