Niamh Brouard, 8, with the remains of the shed where the family kept their bikes.

A local family had a narrow escape when a mini tornado ripped through their garden in the early hours of Saturday.

The Brouard family was woken at 5.50am by a huge bang – a garden trampoline had been uprooted and slammed into the side of their house in Rue des Reines, Forest, cracking a window.

‘It was unbelievable, I thought it was an earthquake,’ said Jason Brouard, 37, of Guernsey Flowers. He was asleep in the house with wife Catherine, also 37, and their children Ryan, 13, Erin, 11 and eight-year-old Niamh.

‘We looked out the window and saw our shed had been torn from its base. It was demolished and ended up in the road,’ he said.

The broken-up building and its contents were strewn over the patio and into the road.

Unable to find the trampoline, Mrs Brouard initially thought that it must be on the roof but it had been dragged along the garden before striking and going over their house and being broken up and smashing into a neighbour’s home 400 metres away.

‘I’ve never seen a sight like it,’ said Mr Brouard.

One of the two greenhouses next to their home has lost in the region of 150 panes down the centre and the other collapsed – both will have to be demolished.

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