GWENT was pounded with strong winds and heavy rain yesterday.

The weather played havoc with the morning commute as winds whipped across the region, blowing down trees and pushing wheelie bins into the road.

The Met Office said today will bring cloud, lighter winds than yesterday and outbreaks of rain. Tomorrow will be bright with very little, if any, rain expected.

Drivers in certain parts of Newport had to swerve to avoid wheelie bins which had been blown from the kerb.

In Pontllanfraith, Edwina Bond, 60, was woken at 5.30am when a tree fell on her house.

Mrs Bond, of Rhymney Close, heard a crash and saw a tree, roughly 18ft tall had fallen on the rear of her house.

No-one was hurt and she is waiting for her insurance company to assess the damage.

She said: “I just thought ‘What the hell?’, it was such a crash.’”

In Chepstow, St Arvans and Devauden, 90 homes were left without power yesterday morning after strong winds brought power lines down.

A spokeswoman for Western Power Distribution said its workforce is working around the clock to reinstate power and expected power would be reinstated by last night.

The Environment Agency issued flood alerts for the River Usk in Monmouthshire and Newport, along with the River Ebbw, Sirhowy and Ebbw Fach for the stretch of the Ebbw Valley.

Gusts of wind reached 44mph in the Heads of the Valleys area and 39mph in Newport, accompanied by around 1in of rain across Gwent between midnight and 2pm.

In Tredegar, rainfall reached almost 2in by 2pm.

More than 20 trees blocked roads across Monmouth-shire during the storms. In Usk, a tree fell on the Olway Bridge, at around 8.30am yesterday.

Another blocked the pavement by the Equestrian Centre on the A472 near the Coleg Gwent campus.

In Shirenewton, 12 trees were reported to have fallen on high ground, while the B4235 was completely blocked by a tree.

In Gilwern, a tree came down outside Glaslyn Court care home, bringing down power lines.

Gwent Police said it saw an increase in calls relating to fallen trees, localised flooding and minor car crashes.

Flooding closed the A4042 in both directions at Llanellen, Monmouthshire, from around 5.15pm yesterday, Gwent Police chief inspector Steve Thomas said.