A baby narrowly avoided harm after a tree fell into a block of flats in Carshalton last night.
The high winds brought by Storm Ciara led to a Met Office yellow weather warning across the UK on Sunday.
By the early hours of Monday morning (February 10), the winds were so severe that a tree was blown down — right into a block of flats at Tyrell Court in Carshalton.
Residents described hearing bangs "worse than a car crash" around 1am on Monday morning, while others woke to the sound of glass smashing and found their homes filled with shards of splintered window glass.
Among them were Roxanne Finch, 31, who lives with her 8-week-old baby daughter and two sons (5 and 15 years old) at Tyrell court.
"My windows went and I've got a newborn baby in the house. It was terrifying," she told the Sutton Guardian.
Her infant daughter miraculously avoided any of the falling glass because she was sleeping alongside her mum at the time, rather than in her cot near to the windows that were smashed when the tree came down.
"There were glass everywhere inside the cot. Luckily she was sleeping with me because she couldn't settle at the time," Roxanne described.
"We woke up to glass everywhere and I've had to throw out some bedding because it was so covered in shards of glass.
"It was so lucky she was sleeping with me otherwise it would have been a different matter," she added.
Andrew King, 30, was among the first residents to see the devastation caused by the tree:
"Everyone got woken up. I was awake at the time. It sounded like a plane coming down," he said.
"A huge bang with windows smashing and popping everywhere.
"The noise of horrendous. It was very scary," Andrew added.
King described how most residents gathered together after being startled awake by the crash of the tree hitting into the flats.
Soon afterwards, the fire brigade arrived and assessed the building for structural damage.
Since then, several residents in the building including Roxanne have been left with hastily boarded-up windows in the midst of winter with more severe weather expected.
"I've been told I've got to wait two weeks for a new window frame.
"I'm currently sleeping in my middle son's room, on the floor with the baby, because it's just not practical to sleep near the boarding the way it's been done," Roxanne said.
Sutton Council described their response to the tree fall in response to a query from YLG:
"Sutton Housing Partnership responded immediately to the damage caused by Storm Ciara at Tyrell Court in Carshalton.
"The focus for the response team was to make the site safe as soon as possible and work alongside the Housing Manager who carried out welfare checks on residents to make sure they were safe and well.
"Our team also scaled the building to remove branches from the roof and the main stump has been planned to be removed pending specialist equipment coming in to assist.
"We understand that the damage caused by the storm was highly stressful and our team will continue to keep residents supported and informed," a spokesperson said.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here