The top gust measured was 78mph at Berry Head in Devon, smashing previous august records. Network Rail had to close the main line through the SW because of multiple incidents of debris on the line. Through Devon and Cornwall many roads were blocked due to trees on the road and the police reported several collisions because of the weather conditions. In North Yorkshire and Dublin, people had to be evacuated from their homes because of flooding.
For most people it was never going to be a big event, and most people were either not in a warning area, or were in low probability of a moderate impact event warnings areas. Given its potential to cause injury and damage to an area full of holiday makers camping and doing outdoor activities on a weekend in August, the targeted warnings were wise.
A special note on thunderstorm warnings. These are tricky, because in any given warning area, most won't see anything. Storms can be forecast, but not the exact location or timing and they are small in area but for those who do get one, the impact can be especially severe sometimes.
I'm not sure that the media, who then spin the warnings into ongoing news stories help in the manner they do so. That causes confusion. However warnings help people change behaviour. But more importantly, they put the relevant agencies on stand by, ready to take action and enable event organisers to make decisions to make events safer, or to cancel them where necessary.
Storms are only named when they have the potential to require an amber warning. Amber warnings were issued and were justified in my opinion. This was actually the first UK named storm this season, which started last September. The previous named storm was Franklin in February 2022. A few other named storms have traversed us, but these were named by other countries, not by the Met Office or Met Éireann.
Met Office warnings are based around potential impacts, not absolute measurements. They are issued in conjunction with other organisations and take into account things like time of day, time of year, population density, likely events taking place, etc. They use a grid warning system, which on one axis shows the potential severity of disruption and on the other axis, how likely that disruption is to occur. Example in photo.