Waves batter into the sea wall of a marina in Brighton, south England, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane force winds is lashing much of Britain, causing flooding and travel delays with the cancellation of many flights and trains. Weather forecasters say it is one of the worst storms to hit Britain in years. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)
Waves batter into the sea wall of a marina in Brighton, south England, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane force winds is lashing much of Britain, causing flooding and travel delays with the cancellation of many flights and trains. Weather forecasters say it is one of the worst storms to hit Britain in years. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)
Engineers look at the damage as a crane working on redevelopment at the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, near to Downing Street in London, was brought down by high winds, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane-force gusts is lashing southern Britain, parts of France and Netherlands, causing flooding and travel delays with the cancellation of many flights and trains. Weather forecasters say it is one of the worst storms to hit Britain in years. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
A car is crushed under a fallen tree as a man pushes a bicycle nearby following a storm, in Hornsey, north London, Monday Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane-force winds is lashing southern Britain, causing flooding and travel delays including the cancellation of roughly 130 flights at London's Heathrow Airport. (AP Photo/PA, Yui Mok) UNITED KINGDOM OUT, NO SALES , NO ARCHIVES
A man walks in a sidewalk partially blocked by trees outside Strand station in London, Monday Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane-force winds is lashing southern Britain, causing flooding and travel delays including the cancellation of roughly 130 flights at London's Heathrow Airport. (AP Photo/PA, Jonathan Brady) UNITED KINGDOM OUT, NO SALES, NO ARCHIVES
A fallen tree branch partially blocks a pavement and road in London, Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. A major storm with hurricane-force winds is lashing southern Britain, causing flooding and travel delays including the cancellation of roughly 130 flights at London's Heathrow Airport.Some rail lines shut down Monday morning, and some roads were closed due to fallen trees and power lines.Air travelers and commuters were advised to check conditions before starting any journeys. Widespread delays were expected as major London train lines delayed their opening because of the winds and tree hazards.(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
LONDON (AP) — A major storm with hurricane-force gusts lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France on Monday, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. Five deaths were reported.
Weather forecasters say it's one of the worst storms to hit Britain in years. Gusts of 99 miles per hour (160 kph) were reported on the Isle of Wight in southern England, while gusts up to 80 mph hit the U.K. mainland.
UK Power Networks officials said up to 270,000 homes were without power. Flood alerts were issued for many parts of southern England and emergency officials said hundreds of trees were knocked down by gusts.
London's Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, cancelled at least 130 flights and express trains between central London and Gatwick and Stansted airports were suspended. Huge waves prompted the major English port of Dover to close, cutting off ferry services to France.
A nuclear power station in Kent, southern England, automatically shut its two reactors after storm debris reduced its incoming power supply. Officials at the Dungeness B plant said the reactors had shut down safely and would be brought back online once power was restored.
In central London, a huge building crane near the prime minister's office crumpled in the gusts.
Thousands of homes in northwestern France also lost electricity, while in the Netherlands several rail lines shut down, airport delays were reported. Dutch citizens were warned against riding their bicycles — a favored form of transport — because of the high winds, and Amsterdam's central railway station was shut down by storm damage.
Some English rail lines also closed Monday morning, and some roads were closed due to fallen trees and power lines. There were severe delays on many parts of the London Underground and London Overground trains were delayed several hours.
In Kent, police said a 17-year-old girl died after a tree fell onto the camper home she was sleeping in. Hertfordshire police said a man in his 50s was killed when a tree fell on a car in Watford. Police said one London man died in an apparent gas explosion at his home and a teenage boy drowned Sunday after being swept to sea while playing in the surf at Newhaven.
Amsterdam police said a woman was killed when a tree fell on her in the city and advised people to stay indoors.
The storm has hurricane-force gusts but is not classified as a hurricane since it did not form over warm expanses of open ocean like the hurricanes that batter the Caribbean and the eastern United States, according to Britain's national weather service, the Met Office.
Britain does not get hurricanes because hurricanes are "warm latitude" storms that draw their energy from seas far warmer than the North Atlantic, the agency said.
The storm is not named and does not have an "eye" at its center as hurricanes typically do. On social networks it has been called stormageddon.
Sweden's Meteorological Institute upgraded its advisory Monday, warning that a "class 3" storm that could pose "great danger to the public" as it hits western and southern Sweden in the evening.
Still, the damage was less than feared in the 48 hours leading up to the storm, when the British press raised alarm bells about a possibly catastrophic storm.
British Airways said its long haul flights were expected to operate normally but domestic and European flights were operating on a reduced schedule with some cancellations. It said Gatwick and London City airport operations should not be affected.
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Cassandra Vinograd in London, Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris, Malin Rising in Stockholm and Michael C. Corder in Amsterdam contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-28-EU-Britain-Storm/id-1217c424451b4412a7744b927acb6206Related Topics: Origami Owl Tony Hale Kelly LeBrock tony stewart EverQuest Next
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