A couple and their young child in Borgarnes, west Iceland, narrowly escaped from their bed last night when a log of wood from a scaffold outside their house smashed their bedroom window during a record storm.
According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, at one point last night the wind speed underneath Mount Hafnarfjall, outside Borgarnes, reached a speed of 62.9 meters per second.
That is the second highest wind speed ever recorded in that location, which is notoriously stormy. On December 31, 1999, the wind underneath Mount Hafnarfjall reached a speed of 63.9 meters per second.
The highest wind speed ever measured in Iceland is more than 74 meters per second.
The road between Borgarnes and Reykjavík was closed for three hours last night, during which almost 20 trucks were stranded in Borgarnes, and Hellisheidi mountain pass between Reykjavík and Selfoss was closed for more than an hour last night due to a traffic accident, ruv.is reports.
Emergency crews in southwest Iceland were busy trying to minimize damage caused by the storm. Trailers and containers smashed into cars and slates went flying off roofs, Morgunbladid reports.
In Hafnarfjördur, at one point, it looked like an entire roof would blow off a building; but search and rescue teams managed to save it in the nick of time.
