Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by
texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us. Eye of the great storm Don’t
worry,” BBC weatherman Michael Fish told the nation 25 years
ago. “Apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there
was a hurricane on the way. There isn’t ...” It was scant
comfort that technically he was right. It wasn’t a hurricane
that hit Britain on the night of October 16, 1987, but a storm,
with 120mph gusts of wind and accompanying whirlwinds tearing
through South East England, the worst to hit the mainland and
its islands in living memory. The South of England took the
brunt of the storm and was unprepared for the disaster, as the
eye of the storm had been predicted to rage over the Channel and
avoid the south coast. But the experts were wrong and Sussex,
Kent and Essex were the three worst hit counties. When Britain
woke up the following morning in a collective state of shock, up
to 23 lives had been lost, hundreds had been injured, hundreds
of thousands left without p