IN RURAL UK, THE ‘BEAST FROM THE EAST’ IS STILL BITING
Snow downs communications, kills livestock and renders roads treacherous
After a week of blizzards, freezing rain and brutal wind — some of the worst winter weather Britain has seen in decades — the sun finally emerged in northern England last week, piercing the thick grey storm clouds and melting layers of ice that had sent cars spinning off roads and left towns and cities paralysed for days.
For most of England, the warmer conditions brought a thaw after a week of chaos, but for many in remote regions like some of the hills of the Pennines, the worst was far from over.
The extreme winds and snows, created by the collision of two weather systems, Storm Emma and a blast of arctic Siberian air nicknamed the Beast from the East, left several rural communities stranded for days with limited food and fuel, prompting the military to drop emergency supplies by helicopter.
Snowdrifts piled up to 2 metres high in the northern Pennines, leaving some residents trapped in their homes for more than 48 hours before emergency services and volunteers were able to dig them out.
Local farmers were hit especially hard, with several losing livestock because of the deep snows, freezing temperatures and wind gusts up to 170kph. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs was being called upon to release emergency funds to help defray the costs of disposing of hundreds and perhaps thousands of sheep carcasses, at a cost of about US$25-$30 (780-940 baht) per animal.
Supermarkets ran out of milk, bread and fresh vegetables and some residents were cut off from urgent medical supplies.
Bungalows in the area were buried up to the eaves in snow. “I opened my front door and was met by a solid wall of snow,” recalled Brian Marshall, a retired resident of Nenthead in the northern Pennines, one of the highest villages in England at about 460 metres above sea level.
Mr Marshall had to climb out of his back door to clear the snow from the front, but even then his house was cut off from the main road.
Although he had enough food to last for about a month, he quickly ran out of the coal he depends upon for cooking and heating.
With the roads blocked, it became impossible to replenish his supply, but within a few days volunteers lugged sled loads of coal to his house.
“It’s incredible how everyone from the community mucks in at times of need,” Mr Marshall said.
“If we don’t do it, then no one else will, so we always find a way.”
Even for longtime residents accustomed to heavy snowfalls, the severity of last week’s storms was shocking.
The snow started on Monday but conditions did not really deteriorate until Wednesday, when strong winds began stacking the fluffy powder flakes into huge snowdrifts, blocking the roads.
“The wind came with the snow this time. We didn’t expect such a wide-range impact,” said Ian Taylor-Lynch, another resident of Nenthead who spent most of Monday digging out older neighbours from their homes.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sue Gilbertson, a 20-year resident of Garrigill, another small village in the area. Last Sunday, all five roads in and out of the area had been closed off and many residents lost electricity for more than 13 hours.
Many of the towns lost touch with the outside world on Wednesday. With a general lack of snow removal equipment in an area not accustomed to such episodes, it was days until all the major roads were cleared. Many back roads remained impassable.
Ms Gilbertson said residents of neighbouring towns and cities often assume that Alston and the villages around it in the Pennines are regularly cut off by snow in the winter, but she said it was rare for all the roads to be completely closed.
By Tuesday morning, some roads into the area had reopened, but local authorities warned people to only take essential trips to replenish supplies and help vulnerable family members.
“The storm created wind tunnels filled with snow that severely reduced visibility and the ice isn’t melting due to the freezing temperatures, making the roads extremely dangerous,” Ms Gilbertson said.
Many residents have relied on the internet to communicate with one another and call for help. But on Sunday, internet connections and power supplies were down, cutting off some communities entirely.
“It makes you realise how reliant and cut off you are without internet access,” Ms Gilbertson said after losing her broadband connection on Sunday.
“I have no idea what is happening out there.” Chris Harrison, a sheep farmer in Alston who owns more than 700 head, said he took early precautions and moved his herd to safer ground when the storm was forecast last week. But still, he said, nothing had prepared him for the scale of the bad weather.
Initially, Mr Harrison thought he had lost only one sheep, but as the snow drifted over the stone walls that pen his herd in, he worried that the animals would simply wander off.
“We have 10 miles [16km] of stone walls to maintain,” he said, with a look of concern on his face. By “we” he meant himself and his son, who together look after the sheep and 20 head of cattle on the 1,250-acre farm.
Mr Harrison said other farmers in the uplands had suffered much worse, with some losing up to 20 sheep, which are worth anywhere from $300 to $600 apiece.
“People are losing their livelihoods,” he said. As the weather went from bad to worse, many farmers fell short on feed — particularly important now, a month before lambing season — and water supplies were cut off because of frozen pipes.
Even after the snow had stopped and the wind had eased, residents were stuck and scrambling to recover.
Mr Harrison spent most of his day helping his neighbours navigate the blocked roads using his tractor and then took one of his sick sheep to the vet, fearing that it might have hypothermia.
After an injection of hot fluids the animal seemed to be recovering, but later in the evening when he went to check on the sheep he found it lying on a bed of hay, dead.
“That’s two down,” he said with a sigh. “This storm is getting very expensive.”