Volunteers help put city back on its feet as weather hits

Dundee folk have rallied to help each other as the biggest snowfall for more than 20 years leaves the city battling to cope.

Volunteers Tayside 4×4 Response Group have been out taking staff to Ninewells and Perth Royal Infirmary.

The group, established following the back-to-back severe winter weather periods of 2010/2011, has also been taking social workers out on rural community alarm calls near Brechin.

The group have been covering shifts all through the night since the storm hit.

Café Marwick’s continued its effort to supply hot drinks and soup to those in need, with more than £400 donated to the cause by generous Dundonians.

Soup and lunch items prepared for the cancelled Abertay University Securi-Tay conference were donated to Dundee Salvation Army.

Breakdown service Big Recovery and Transportation continued ferrying NHS and emergency service staff to work for free.

City council leader John Alexander said: “These conditions are extreme and as bad as many of us have ever known them, but that has not stopped council employees continuing to deliver vital services.

“I want to say a massive thank you to them for their dedication to the people of Dundee, some of whom are the most vulnerable members of our communities.”

Among those services is meals on wheels, who ensure elderly and vulnerable people in the city get a hot meal twice a day.

Among the team delivering around 1,000 hot meals a day are Kathleen Gilmartin and Ross Breen.

Kathleen, who has been delivering meals for 13 years, says they offer more than just the food.

“Some of the people we deliver to haven’t seen anyone else that day, so we try and chat to them as much as we can – although we do have to get on to the next delivery. The service is about more than just the hot meal – we look out for them too.”

Ross, who has been working in the team for six years, said: “We can keep an eye on them. We get to know them and can sense if everything is okay.

“There was one time where a woman’s behaviour was changing. We asked around and it turned out she had been put on the wrong medication.”