Gales cause widespread disruption
GALES reaching up to 100mph left a trail of destruction this week throughout the county.
Marjorie Kerr
Hundreds of homes and businesses were left without power as overhead electricity cables were damaged by falling trees and flying debris.
Houses across the county were left damaged as the high winds struck on Tuesday.
And transport was badly affected as train services were cancelled and some roads were closed following accidents and uprooted trees.
The A801 at Armadale was closed for over four hours after a lorry overturned at around 8.50am.
And there was further disruption when a lorry was blown over on the flyover of the M8 at Deans Road in Livingston.
Armadale used car business, Turner Motor Co, were left facing a £30,000 bill after the wind blew over a tree and a wall onto 10 of their cars.
Kevin Turner from the firm said he was shocked when he saw the damage.
He said: "My brother Robert and I arrived back to work after the holiday to find that 10 of the cars we had for sale were write-offs.
"The tree between the garage and the property next door has been blown over and that in turn had caused the wall to collapse on top of the cars."
Kevin and his brother Robert must now claim their insurance to recoup the cost of the damage.
But he said the loss is a blow to his business.
Kevin added: "January is usually a good time for sales and we're now down about half of our stock, so this is a complete nightmare."
Fiona Lunn of Gowanbank in Ladywell, Livingston, also reported serious damage to her home and garden for the second time in a month.
Her home, and that of her neighbour, were damaged by a falling tree during the high winds on December 8.
Now the fence at the back of Fiona's house has been knocked over, and her neighbour's outhouse has been flattened by falling trees.
Fiona said the issue of the trees' safety was raised with West Lothian Council in December and she said she is upset that residents' concerns were not taken more seriously.
"We are still waiting for insurers to allow us to go ahead with the repairs we need to do after December 8 and now there is more damage to deal with," she said.
"When the council came out the last time, we told them that the trees were unsafe but we were reassured that we had nothing to worry about.
"I'm really angry because this was totally avoidable and I'm now worried that what's left of the tree will fall on my house."
In Broxburn, 600 properties still had no power on Wednesday morning as a result of cables being knocked down or damaged.
And in Craigshill, Livingston, ScottishPower reported that 300 homes had been left without electricity on Tuesday, although the company said only four of their customers were still without power yesterday.
West Lothian Council reported that two care homes had to switch to emergency power supplies.
A spokesman for ScottishPower said: "We have been experiencing problems across the region from the Borders to Fife and have 500 engineers working on repairs, as well as drafting in extra help from England.
"The problems have been compounded by the fact that the high winds make it dangerous to work at the height required to carry out the repairs.
"We would like to thank our customers for their patience while the repairs were carried out."
The country parks were also badly affected with damage to trees and at Beecraigs a stag was killed by a falling tree.
West Lothian Council's arborists and roads teams were on duty throughout Tuesday night and worked with the police and emergency services to clear roads of trees and debris.
A West Lothian Council spokesperson commented: "Clearly this has been an extreme weather event with major disruption and damage across West Lothian.
"Our priority was to make sure that vulnerable residents continued to receive their services, manage the issues at the care homes, ensure that the roads were cleared, and support the emergency services.
"As the scale of the storm became apparent we suspended the bin collection service, which was already restricted because of the public holiday and closed the community recycling centres.
"There has been damage to council properties and we will be assessing this over the next few days.
"Council staff will continue to deal with the impact of the storm and will prioritise issues of health and safety to the public. It is too early at the moment to estimate the cost of the storm."