Tree crushes parked cars

And hundreds of homes in the Stourbridge area were without electricity today after a power cut blamed on the violent gusts.

Emergency workers rushed to the scene after the tree toppled into the car park outside Lye Town Football Club, Stourbridge Road today.

Around six cars were damaged in the incident - including two which were crushed as the heavy poplar tree fell directly on top of them.No-one is believed to have been hurt but experts from Dudley Council, which owns the car park, sealed off the area while they investigated how to remove the tree safely.

They were also concerned about the safety of other trees nearby as rough winds and heavy rain continued to batter the site.

John Bayliss, who works at the football club, said he had only arrived at the club five minutes before the tree fell, at around 10.55am.

"It is a very large tree and it fell directly along the public car park outside the club," he said.

"It looks as though around six cars have been damaged but the area has now been sealed off by Dudley Council while the clean-up work begins.

"Other trees in the area were removed by the council quite recently because they were deemed to be unsafe but it looks like they missed this one.

"I am also concerned about some of the other trees and I hope the council workers will be looking at making sure these are dealt with so nothing like this can happen again.

Mr Bayliss said he was pleased no-one had been injured in the incident.

Dudley Council spokesman Phil Parker said workers would carry out checks on surrounding trees to make certain no more are at risk," he said.

"The combination of the heavy rain and strong winds are believed to be responsible for the tree falling."

Meanwhile a Kidderminster family had an amazing escape today when an 80 foot tall tree collapsed in high winds crushing two cars on their driveway.

Elaine Morris, aged 48, was just about to leave the house in Winchat Grove, Spennells, to take her daughter Beth to school at 8am when the tree toppled over.

The trunk landed on the roof of the garage smashing tiles and part of the gable end of the building and then bounced onto the top of a Chrysler Voyager and a Citroen C3 crushing them to the ground.

A £40,000 Range Rover Vogue, belonging to Philip Morris, aged 51, was also nearby but was not damaged.

Mr Morris was on his way by taxi to Birmingham Airport this morning to take a flight to Morocco on business when he received a call from his shocked wife Elaine who told him of the devastation.

He quickly returned to the scene to find the destruction it had left in its wake as it fell to the ground.

The solicitor said: "My wife was very lucky not to have been in the car with Beth when the tree came down.

"She was just about to take Beth to school when the tree landed on her Citroen car.

"We only had the Beech tree inspected by tree surgeons last summer. They took a few

branches off."

By Lee Watton