LONDON (AP) — The second of two storms to hit the U.K. this weekend brought widespread travel disruptions and power outages to Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England on Sunday.
The Met Office, the U.K.’s national forecaster, warned that Storm Boelo would bring a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves and said people should stay indoors as much as possible.
The agency said wind gusts peaked at 84 mph (135 kph) in Argyll and Bute in Scotland.
An amber wind warning, the Met Office’s second most severe, is active across Scotland and the north of England until late Sunday. Flood warnings are also in place, while airports, ferries, railways and roads have seen disruptions. Power outages have affected some 82,000 homes.
Boelo, pronounced “Boo-Loh”, has followed hard on the heels of Storm Austen, which battered southern England, in particular, on Friday.
The Met Office began naming major storms in 2015 as a way to keep the public informed about severe weather. Storms are named in alphabetical order throughout the season, from September to August.
As the storm moved eastward into continental Europe, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport warned travelers of cancellations and delays of flights to and from the busy aviation hub caused by strong winds that were battering the Netherlands.
Three crew members were injured Sunday afternoon on a freight ship that temporarily suffered engine problems north of the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog, the country’s Coastguard maritime agency said. The island is about 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of the capital, Amsterdam.
Two of the injured sailors were winched off the ship, UHL Freedom, and taken by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland. The nature of their injuries was not immediately released. The freighter, with a crew of 25, was sailing with limited engine power Sunday evening. A Coastguard emergency tug was on standby near the ship, the agency said on its website.
High wind and rain also were expected through the day in Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. Some ferries in the region were canceled, train services were suspended on some Swedish lines as a precaution and some trailers were barred from Denmark’s Great Belt Bridge.
