Storm crisis needed action not just words

We welcome the arrival of more than 100 military personnel to Aberdeenshire, ready to provide aid to residents left in dire straits following Storm Arwen. However, when around 3,000 households have been left to fend for themselves in freezing conditions for close to a week, the help being dispatched now feels enormously overdue.

Communities have supported one another with the council doing what it could, but the general consensus among north-east residents is still that the official assistance being offered now is too little, too late.

Politicians witnessed the chaos and serious threat to wellbeing across Aberdeenshire, extending their sympathies, yet it took a formal request from the council to bring military relief to the area. When lives are at stake, we need action, not words.

Troops will mainly be conducting welfare checks. After an extended period without electricity, heating and possibly even food and shelter, there may be vulnerable members of the community facing serious hardship. Perhaps if more welfare checks had been performed sooner, they could have been spared at least some of their suffering.