How Scotland beat Bawbag
Winds reached 165mph, schools were shut and transport chaos ensued as the worst storm in 25 years battered the north of Britain. The Daily Record got a look at the internal workings of the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Control Centre.
A road accident in Lanark, a kids’ trampoline blowing away in Maryhill, Glasgow, a roof blown off a building in Motherwell, trees blocking a road in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire – every few minutes another 999 call clocked up.
At one point, highly trained staff were coordinating 19 emergency response teams at once – but the atmosphere remained cool and calm.
Watch commander Marie-Claire Coyle briefly stepped away from her bank of three monitors to explain how her team were dealing with the extreme weather.
She said: “We have 2.5million people in the Strathclyde area – almost half the population of Scotland – and all the 999 calls come into this room.
“It can get very busy, but the people who work here are first class so we always manage.
As well as dealing with the volume of emergency calls coming into the centre, further difficulties arose as local authority staff were sent home.
“One of the problems today is that most of the local authorities have sent their workers home, so we have buildings that have been damaged and there is nobody tocall out to carry out emergency repairs. In these cases, we are having to do what we can on our own.”
You can’t help but admire the staff in centres like this across the globe, co-ordinating relief efforts whether it is a storm, earthquake, or other disaster.
