AMAZED 76-year-old Nellie Gallagher was lucky to escape unharmed when storm force winds lifted the roof off nearby garages and dropped the timbers in her garden.

Nellie's garden looks like a timber yard after the incredible near miss.

Nellie, of Windermere Close, Cob Wall, Blackburn, was in the house with her 83-year-old husband Anthony when disaster struck on Christmas Eve.

"It sounded like the wall was falling down but it was the roof of the garages next to us, " she said.

"I was in the kitchen and it was a miracle it did not come through the window. It has damaged our roof and brickwork."

A poplar tree also came tumbling down, though not quite the whole way, during the Christmas storm.

The 40ft tree in the grounds of the Alexandra Hotel, Dukes Brow, Blackburn, was left at a 45-degree angle, hanging perilously over the road. Landlord Harry Lee said the tree had been shored up with logs over the weekend and he hoped workmen would come out to remove it soon.

Meanwhile, with warnings of more strong winds to come later this week, thousands of Lancashire customers had their electricity supplies reconnected at the weekend.

A spokesman for electricity company Norweb said: "We had 15 per cent of a whole year's faults in just 36 hours.

"Altogether across the region there were 100,000 customers affected at some time or another. However, we've completed all the faults that came in and if people are still without supply ,they should give us a ring."

Norweb is to negotiate with Offer, the Office for Electricity Regulation, to decide how customers affected by black-outs should be compensated.

But the Norweb spokesman added that damage to items such as food stored in freezers would have to be claimed on household insurance.

Anyone still without electricity should ring 0845 055 4321.

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