The 1996 Winter White out
When the Loop Road became home to hundreds of trapped drivers
IT was 1996 when WEST CUMBRIANS made the best of the worst in
what one
88-year-old described as the worst white-out since the war.
Some 500 cars, lorries and buses completely blocked the roads
between
the Howgate Hotel and Hensingham. All routes in and out of Whitehaven
were impassable and West Cumberland Hospital could not accept
patients.
The drama started at around 8.0am on a quiet Monday morning as
the
first snow flakes fell. Within three hours four inches of snow
and
jack-knifed lorries had started to paralyse traffic.
By the afternoon shops and businesses had closed and people attempted
to flee home as Stagecoach bus services and British Rail services
ground
to a halt.
The traffic jam that built up around the Pelican Garage had a
knock on
effect all along the A595 to Sellafield. Journey times of 12 to
14 hours
were common.
At Sellafield for the first time ever at 6.0pm on Monday management
decided the wisest course of action was to have a controlled shut
down
of both the Magnox and Thorp plants. As spokesman David Young
explained:
"We could have continued with production, but in view of
the fact that
emergency services would not have been able to get through we
decided it
was best to shut down.''
2,000 Sellafield workers were forced to remain on site and slept
in
offices, canteens and changing rooms. All other staff were advised
not
to report in for work.
Most bizarre alert of the evening of chaos was that Whitehaven
fire
brigade had to try to respond to an automatic fire alarm at the
isolated
St Bees lighthouse. The alarm was false and the brigade got stuck
trying
to reach the lighthouse before being towed ignominiously back
to the
fire station by a JCB.
St Bees parish councillor, Harold Wilson who got off relatively
lightly
with just a six hour journey from Distington commented: "In
those six
hours we never saw a single county highways vehicle...and I heard
they
plan to lay off 22 staff.''
By Tuesday afternoon police were operating a one way system at
Howgate
which started to mobilise traffic again on the A595.
Countering cricism a spokesman for the Cockermouth county highways
department said: "We pre-salted all priority I and 2 routes,
including
the A595 on Sunday evening.
"We had every piece of plant and machinery and all our men
out on
Monday on snow clearance.''
Providing emergency refuge accommodation at the height of the
blizzard
were both the Salvation Army Citadel and the Aged Concern building.
Over
100 people were put up at the Salvation Army with people from
all over
the North, Chester, Manchester and Newcastle huddling together.
The
magistrates court staff had to stay overnight as did many offices
and
businesses. The Expresso coffee bar in Whitehaven Market provided
impromptu overnight emergency accommodation.
The massive traffic snarl-up on the Loop Road led to the Sunny
Hill
public house opening all hours and being swamped with benighted
motorists.
Some 100 children were stranded at a school in Egremont and 50
stranded
at Mayfield special school, Hensingham.
Coping better than some with the snow was Safeways supermarket
worker,
Allison Kitchin who skied down from Kells to get to work.
EMERGENCY vehicles trying to reach people still trapped in their
cars
on Tuesday morning were locked in continuing traffic jams between
Whitehaven and Workington.
An RAC patrol man, stuck with his break-down vehicle in the stationary
queue on the New Road hill out of Whitehaven, said: "This
is getting
serious. There are old people out there who have been in their
cars all
night and could be suffering from hypothermia. We cannot get to
them and
some of them are likely to be in need of help and medical attention."
Police allowed traffic to start moving again out of Whitehaven
about
9am on Tuesday, a single-line route having been opened up to Workington
through clusters of immobile vehicles and deep and drifting snow
on both
sides of the road.
But within 30 minutes everything was at a standstill again, with
police
trying to create a way through for snow ploughs.
Meanwhile the area around Pelican Garage at the north end of Whitehaven
Loop Road was again a chaotic scene. From the garage in every
direction
vehicles could be seen halted bumper to bumper, frustrated and
anxious
drivers climbing in and out trying to determine what was happening