I know that you have hurricanes on a regular basis, but over here they're as rare as hens' teeth. I was living down in Kent in 1987 when we had our 'historic' hurricane (it was sad because after a wet summer and autumn the trees were still heavy with leaf, and so millions were uprooted) ... After the storm I was outside on the road inspecting the havoc, we got off pretty lightly with only a couple of dozen tiles having redesigned the car... it was still quite breezy and things were still blowing around, and that 2 gallon jar had rolled down the village road and came to a standstill at my heels, intact!. I left it outside for a week with a notice 'Is this yours?', but despite it being a small village, its owner never claimed it. But there was a lot of damage, and I suppose a 2 gallon ginger beer jar wasn't on the top of anyone's list of priorities
A total of 15 million trees were lost in the storm, including 10 million conifers, 3.25 million oaks and 1.75 million beeches. The National Trust alone estimated that it lost over 250,000 trees. Thirty of its properties were badly damaged.
If the storm had occurred a few weeks later the damage to trees would have been far less. A mild autumn had meant that most trees were still in leaf, and therefore offering more wind resistance. Furthermore, an exceptionally wet autumn meant root systems were sodden and couldn't hold out against the wind.
