A FAMILY had a lucky escape when the roof was torn off their house by Storm Eleanor.

Two young children were in the house on St Brides Way, Barry when the roof was ripped off and thrown into a car as the storm battered the Welsh coast.

Matthew Venables, girlfriend Natasha Selby were at home with their sons Louis, one, and eight-week-old Theo when the full brunt of the storm hit.

"I was in the bedroom with the baby and I heard a loud bang," said Mr Venables.

"I was asleep and the baby was woken up by it, we didn't know what was happening. I looked out not long after and saw the police out there and the roof was over the other side of the road. It had hit the lamppost and then hit the car next to it.

"We realised when we had the knock at the door that it was our house."

After being torn from the building, the roof – largely still intact – crashed into a lamppost adjacent to the couple's home before smashing the windscreen of the car immediately beside it. It then proceeded to blow further across the road, eventually settling at a roundabout around 50 yards away.

With the house dangerously unsafe, Mr Venables says his family were instructed to leave by the emergency services soon after.

"We were moved out at about 3 o’clock this morning by the fire service, mainly because of the risk to the electrics," said Mr Venables.

"The roofs on here are all the same, they’re all flat. We’ve had problems with it before but we never expected anything like this."

Jennie Griffiths, head of joint fire control for South Wales, tweeted in the early hours of Wednesday morning that fire crews were forced to remove the remaining parts of the roof from the property for safety reasons.

The family were unharmed in the incident and are currently staying with relatives of Mr Venables while the building undergoes repairs.