Snow everywhere but yet again we escaped the worst that Emma had
ONCE again it seems we escaped the worst of the weather.
Over the past week, the weather, was the only topic of conversation, wherever you went and since the thaw set in on Saturday, the conversation turned quite often to just how lucky we are in the northeast and that we always seem to escape the worst of whatever the weather brings.
It happens time and time again and while we undoubtedly got quite a dumping of snow with rural roads quite near to town impassable with large snow drifts we got nothing compared to other parts of the country and even some of our surrounding counties. While Dublin and Wicklow received huge snowfalls as a result of the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, the Cooley mountains seem to protect us from the worst of the Irish weather.
The experience is repeated quite regularly during the year when our more regular wind, rain and tidal storms lash the nation. We escape the worst of coastal and river flooding and normal everyday business is very rarely halted by the weather.
This week was an exception however as Louth and Dundalk were covered by the status Red warnings earlier in the week, before it was extended nationwide.
The bulletins from the National Centre meant that we all had to stay indoors and the normal business stopped with everywhere closing up.
On Friday morning, as the worst of Storm Emma had passed us by, there wasn’t a single shop open at 9am right along Park Street, Earl Street, Clanbrassil Street, Crowe Street, Francis Street or Dublin Street.
Not even a coffee shop was open in the town centre. Finally my explorations found a garage on the Carrick Road to meet my caffeine fix.
Later that morning and all remained closed and it wasn’t until later in the day before some businesses reopened their premises.
On Saturday morning it was astonishing to see Dunnes Stores hadn’t resumed normal business, Tesco looked closed with the shutters down, but access was only through the covered carpark. Meanwhile the Lidl store, across from Tesco Extra was doing a roaring trade, although the shelves had been cleared of the basics of bread, milk and eggs by 10am.
Similarly as Storm Emma approached on Thursday afternoon and the warning to be indoors by 4pm neared, customers thronged Tesco Extra as the manager was vainly trying to encourage shoppers to finish their shopping and make their way to the checkouts as the store was closing in ten minutes.
Still shoppers swarmed in and passed the security guards who were trying to stem the tide.
It was a perverse Christmas Eve, there were no selection boxes, turkeys, or Cranberry sauces in the trolleys, just the more basic provisions, although of course, the bread, milk and eggs were long since sold out.
And just what do you need in the shopping trolley that is going to ensure your survival of the coming 24 hours as we sheltered from the storm.
Well, I did see one male shopper approaching the tills with his survival provisions, three two-litre bottles of cider. That was it, no food, no candles, no batteries, just some booze for the hours ahead.
I DID SEE ONE MALE SHOPPER APPROACHING THE TILLS WITH HIS SURVIVAL PROVISIONS, THREE TWO-LITRE BOTTLES OF CIDER