Jo Travis is convinced she would have died if she had left her kitchen a couple of seconds later.

The sub-editor at The Birmingham Post left her ground floor flat on Anderton Park Road, Moseley, in a rush.

But when she returned, seconds later, the roof over her kitchen had caved in and her washing machine, oven, floor tiles and sink had turned to rubble.

She said: "I felt numb. I didn't know where to go and I felt very vulnerable. Mine was the worst-hit home in the street. It was just completely out of the blue.

"Who knows what's going to happen now? Had I decided to wash up my dishes for any longer, I would not be here now.

"What was also shocking, though, was the number of passers-by taking photos. There were women with prams snapping away." A 5ft by 8ft hole was left where the roof to her kitchen extension should have been.

Jo said she might have to swap the £400,000 Victorian house that her rented flat is part of for a hotel.

She said: "My kitchen is too dangerous to even enter."

Jo was already in shock because a tree had battered her car as she had tried to drive it down the road.

"The storm was hammering the car from the passenger's side and then from the driver's side. It was shaking. I thought the window was going to come in and that I was going to be seriously hurt.

"Then a branch hit the driver's side and did smash the window. A tree had fallen on my car and dented the roof. It had all happened in a matter of seconds.

"I sat in the car terrified, not knowing whether I was safer inside or out."