A reporter rushes in, his face white, brandishing a piece of debris. “I opened the back door and this almost hit me!”

This is no lily-livered wordsmith, take note. This is a man who took part in the Tough Mudder event, where, um, tough people run through mud.

Truly, the stormpocalypse makes even the tough, muddy man afeared.

The rest of the country has, of course, found itself battered by high winds and up to the neck in water. Senior cabinet ministers and members of the Royal Family have been wading around, stroking their chins and promising help and sympathy. Up here in Bradford we haven’t had that bad a time of it. The disappointment was almost palpable.

But then it happened. Wednesday evening, stormageddon hit. The winds rose and the rain battered down in huge globs the size of crystal balls. A sign on the hotel near the T&A offices began to creak alarmingly. The emergency services closed off Drake Street and tried their best to create a cordon using police incident tape.

The storm wasn’t having any of that. No sooner had the tape been tied up on a lamp-post or street sign than the gale snatched it off and whipped it around the street. It was almost like the Rio carnival, if the Rio carnival took place in the dark on a storm-swept Bradford city centre street.

I went out for a look and saw a man struggling with an umbrella. He looked like he was either dancing with it or trying to wrestle it into submission. You could almost see the tears of frustration on his face as the brolly turned inside out and gave up the ghost like a spider on its deathbed. He ran into the relative shelter of the crown courts to give it the last rites.

Drake Street was full of big coaches as a band comprising some of Dire Straits was at St George’s Hall. I nipped alongside and ducked under the police cordon to get across the road to the bus station.

I was lucky. The policeman was trying to tie the tape back to a lamp-post and didn’t see me. Two girls came out of the Interchange and tried to cross but he shouted them back, flailing his arms. He looked as though he might take off.

The sign on the hotel was flapping around alarmingly. The police did right – if that thing hit you you’d be checking out, possibly permanently. The wind howled down the brick and stone canyon of Bridge Street like there was no tomorrow.

It almost felt like there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow. It was the sort of weather you’d be quite satisfied to see if it was the end of the world.

It was no better when I got home, and then it even started snowing. Truly this was a real weather assault. When I woke up my wife invited me to look out of the window at the fence. It had actually fared better than I expected, but was still a bit damaged. Still, not the end of the world.