Manchester tornado leaves family safe amid chaos and damage

A family have spoken of their miracle escape from a tornado raging at up to 160mph which tore their home apart.

Gareth Moody said that they were “lucky to be alive” after a chimney crashed through his son’s bedroom ceiling, missing him by “centimetres” but wrecking the family’s three-storey house in Greater Manchester.

The council licensing worker, his wife Lyndsey, their three children and son-in-law fled to safety through the remains of the Stalybridge home to find their street had been turned into a “bomb site”.

Around 100 homes were damaged as the Storm Gerrit twister caused mayhem, destroying cars and uprooting trees.

The weather phenomenon that hit Greater Manchester has been provisionally labelled as a T5 tornado by officials.

Confirmation came from the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation following a site investigation and review.

The twisters are assessed on a scale from 0 to 10, with five considered “intense”.

According to the International Tornado Intensity Scale, a T5 has a wind speed of 137 to 160mph.

Although it is rare to hear of them in the UK, meteorologists have said tornadoes can occur regularly across the nation.

A Met Office spokesman said: “Tornadoes in the UK are fairly common. Around 30 are reported a year, and can often occur at this time of year.”

“However, they’re usually short-lived events or occur in places where they can’t create much of a tangible impact.”

The weather experts describe a tornado as a rapidly rotating column of air that reaches between the base of a storm cloud and the ground.

They form in very unsettled weather conditions as part of severe thunderstorms.

A violently whirling mass of air, known as a vortex, forms beneath the storm cloud. A funnel cloud then develops as the vortex spins due to the reduced pressure.

It is thought this twister was caused by a supercell thunderstorm, a squall that exhibits persistent and deep rotation.

The Moodys were in their front bedroom when what police called a “localised tornado” struck at 11.30pm on Wednesday.

Gareth, 45, said: “There was a massive crash so I got up. I went to the back door because I wanted to make sure everything was safe, when there was another crash and the lights went out.

“I ran back upstairs and looked up to see a huge, gaping hole in the ceiling. It was completely gone.

“It was mayhem, bedlam. The chimney stack from next door had been blown out and came through our roof. We managed to get my daughter, son-in-law and our two sons out into the street.”

“I think we are lucky to be alive. The boys are especially lucky because the chimney stack crashed into one of their bedrooms. It’s a miracle that no one was killed.”

Gareth added: “The chimney stack is actually in my son’s room in one whole piece and missed him by centimetres.”

Nurse Lyndsey, 45, added yesterday: “It had started hailstoning…the whole house was shaking and the wind was howling.

“I went to look out of the window, which seemed like it was being sucked out by the wind. As I turned round to move away the whole ceiling just came down. I screamed and then the hallway literally gave way.”

“The chimney came down and took out the rest of the house.”

The couple’s sons Thomas, 15, and Jack, 22, were in their upstairs bedrooms when the roof and chimney fell into Jack’s room.

Gareth said: “My wife was screaming and my two lads were in a panic. I was saying, ‘We have to get out, we have to get out’.

“We managed to escape and everyone is safe. But it feels like death because this is everything we have worked for.”

The couple’s daughter Rebecca Saycell, 20, and her husband Thomas, 27, fled their basement bedroom, while dogs Phoebe and Penny plus cat Jesse escaped too.

Rebecca said: “We got outside and saw that our roof had gone. All the cars in the road were covered with rubble.”

Lyndsey said: “It was like something from a film. You could hear the whirl of it and then it was gone. How do we fix that…where are we going to live?”

The village of Carrbrook was also badly hit by the whirlwind. Electrician Richard Harrison, 52, yesterday looked at a roof tile embedded in the boot of his £30,000 three-month-old Vauxhall Grandland car and said: “I honestly thought a plane had come down because we are on the flight path into Manchester Airport.”

“It is an absolute miracle that no one was killed because I dread to think what could have happened if the tornado had hit in the daytime with people on the streets.”

“There were roof and ridge tiles flying all over the place. You can tell the strength of the wind by looking at the tile in my car.”

“It took some force to do that. It was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. The street looks like a bomb site with debris all over. Some people’s houses have been totally wrecked.”

Greater Manchester Police chiefs declared a “major incident” as officers were called out to “numerous reports of significant damage”.

Residents of the Hough Hill Road area of Stalybridge, in the foothills of the Pennines, yesterday relived the horror of the storm’s 30-second blitz of destruction.

Andy Turner said: “There was what I can only describe as a hurricane which came through. My wife’s car is a write-off, my car’s took a bit of the brunt of the tree.”

“It’s just lucky that nobody was hurt. It was pure carnage.”

Andy Wareham’s Tesla had its windscreen smashed. He said: “Things started flying around. There was about 30 seconds to a minute of chaos and then it calmed down. Straight away I said, ‘It must have been a tornado’.”

Matthew Marsland, who lives opposite houses that were badly damaged, said: “I just heard an extreme noise. I was stood at the patio doors and there was basically a crazy sounding noise.”

The privately-backed Tornado and Storm Research Organisation said site investigations would be required to confirm the damage was caused by a rare UK tornado.

Chief Superintendent Mark Dexter, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “This incident has undoubtedly affected numerous people in the Stalybridge area with many residents displaced from their properties during the night.”

“Our highest priority is keeping people safe which is why we are advising those who have been displaced not to return or enter their properties which have significant damage until they have been assessed by structural engineers.”

A Met Office spokesman said that early reports from the area indicated that “a tornado at the surface was likely” to be the cause of the destruction.

Three men inside a 4×4 which plunged into a river yesterday afternoon (thurs dec 28), according to the police.

Firefighters pulled the vehicle from the River Esk near Glaisdale on the North York Moors yesterday afternoon.

A fourth man who attempted to save the people inside the vehicle had to be pulled to safety himself and was later receiving medical treatment. The dead men’s next of kin were last night being traced and informed about the tragedy.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said that further information about the fatal accident would be released in due course.

A family are “lucky to be alive” after a tornado tore the roof off their house forcing them to scramble to safety over the wreckage.

Roofs were torn off houses, trees blew down and walls collapsed as twister ripped through Greater Manchester during Storm Gerrit.

Gareth Moody, 45, said it is “a miracle that no one was killed” after a chimney stack crashed through his son’s bedroom celiling destroying their home.

The council worker, his wife Lyndsey, also 45, and three of of their children had to clamber over smashed bricks, timber and broken tiles to escape.