Thursday February 24, 2022

The first thing we must advise is a marquee should never be erected in a storm let alone a storm as severe as Eunice.

On the 16th of February, an amber weather warning was issued for the whole of Southern England, Wales and the Midlands. A red weather warning was subsequently issued on 17th February for parts of South West England and South Wales, with a second red warning issued on 18th February for London, the South East and East of England.

We always advise to avoid erecting any marquee in winds more than 30mph and these winds were recorded at 122 miles per hour (196 km/h)

The damage caused by the storm was huge news and arguably the building to take the most damage was the O2 arena. The material used to cover the structure was badly ripped as you can see in the picture below:

The material damaged here is “durable and weather-resistant PTFE-coated glass fibre fabric” We can only assume “Weather-resistant” doesn’t cover storm Eunice! One thing is for sure, when erecting your own party tent make sure you check the weather forecast for wind speed.

The storm didn’t only cause huge damage in the UK, parts of Western, Central and Northern Europe were left without power across affected areas, and many homes had sustained damage. The UK was particularly hard hit, with 1.4 million people left without power at its peak. Many of our customers are marquee hire companies and some unfortunately didn’t follow our advice.

Here are some guidlines we ask you to follow when erecting a marquee:

• Please check the weather forecast to make sure its safe to erect a marquee – Preferably the Met office
• Even if it’s a summers say please use our methods – See our blog titled “How To Secure a Marquee?”
• Please take extra measures when you are using a marquee for a longer period of time. Water weights, sand bags and metal weights are all great.
• If you aren’t sure about something please contact us for advice. We are always here to help.

Securing A Marquee

UK Tents sell fantastic products that will help you secure your marquee but this does not change our advice on wind speed (Avoid use is winds over 30mph) We currently sell 3 products that can help you secure a marque which are: Ground Stakes for soft ground and storm protection kits (For hard and soft ground.

All these products can be located on our accessories page. Even if it looks like its going to be a lovely day we still recommend ground stakes. If your structure isn’t secured properly things can get broken or even worse people can get hurt.

Ground Stakes

Length:  0.50 m.
Frame:  Rebar Steel Metal
Colour:  Silver
Weight:  Approx. 5.2 kg

How to use:

• Decide how many marquee legs you would like to stake
• Hammer each stake into the ground securing the marquee

Storm Kits

• Extra security in strong winds and heavy rain – BUT PLEASE NOTE WINDS NO MORE THAN 30MPH
• Reinforced ratchet tension straps guarantee stability
• Suitable for all our marquees and storage tents

Details:

• 2x Tension Belt Straps, 15 m each
• 2x Ratchets
• 4x 60cm Earth Pegs

If you have any questions regarding our products or the best way to install them contact us today: 01234233234. If you found this article interesting you can thank Rob from Somerset who contacted us with the suggestion. Do you have a burning marquee based question? We would love to hear from you and who knows your question might be our next blog.