A Birchington family had a narrow escape when strong winds damaged their house.

The chimney of Alan and Wendy Jacques’ Park Avenue home crashed to the ground, wrecking the roof and part of a wall.

Alan said: “My wife was just moments away from stepping outside to move the car – another 30 seconds and we would have lost her. She has been very shaken up by the whole thing.

“She was only saved by our son Jonathon shouting and stopping her from going out after he heard debris start to fall, otherwise she would have been under the rubble.

“She thinks he’s a hero. Just afterwards Jonathon thought she was having a heart attack because she was in such shock.

“The chimney came down, along with half the outside of the gable wall, leaving an 8ft by 6ft hole in the roof. We’ve lost all the cavity wall insulation too, our next-door neighbour thought it had started snowing when that all fell down.

“Everything came down onto the car port, which was destroyed, severely damaging the front of our car. It looked like a bomb had gone off.”

And the family could face a repair bill of up to £20,000 after the insurers’ evaluator visited the site and informed them that he believed the wall was bowed and therefore the collapse was not covered by their policy.

Alan said: “He later offered a payment of £1,500 for the loss of the car port, which I have provisionally accepted but that will hardly cover anything.”

Alan, a London Underground train driver, was at work as the bad weather struck but his son and daughter Keeley were at home with Wendy.

The fire brigade checked the house was safe to stay in and temporary repairs to the roof were carried out on Wednesday.

Alan said: “Apparently a similar thing happened to the house in the 1987 hurricane, 10 years before we moved in.”

The damage came at the end of a terrible year for the family.

Alan said: “I lost my seven-month-old grandson to cot death in March.

“But at least bricks and mortar and cars can be mended or replaced. If anything had happened to my wife it would have been devastating.”