Remarkable spirit of Borders residents after the Beast from the East left them stranded

Borders towns were engulfed in a thick haar pouring from the River Tweed, and when the sun finally heated the ground they emerged like Brigadoon after a long spell in isolation to tell their tales.

Children organised supply runs on sleds to the local shops, a pizza parlour baked more than 100 loaves of bread, carers walked for miles through remote villages and valleys, mountain rescue teams worked tirelessly for days, community leaders hunkered down in an old nuclear bunker to co-ordinate the emergency response, and hundreds of local people mucked in clearing roads and caring for neighbours and friends until the snow cleared.

Steve Penny, 58, team member at Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue, said: “We had 27 team members out during the emergency.

“The most serious event our teams dealt with was the couple trapped in their house by a massive snow drift in West Linton, but there were incidents going on all over. At that time, I was dealing with a young girl who had a potential back injury in the Selkirk hills.

“We had one call from a woman who said her partner was lost in a snowdrift somewhere on the A68 but she didn’t know where and was panicking. We have an application called SARLOC, which allows us to send a text message to the missing person, as long as they have a phone and data signal, which immediately shows exactly where they are. We got our plough up to the summit of the Cheviot Hills, at Carter Bar, and shook hands with our Northumbrian colleagues to confirm that the A68 was clear all the way to England.”

Paul Cathrow, a mountain rescue volunteer, said: “I’ve never seen conditions like it. There are people who have worked for mountain rescue for 25 years who have never seen snow so deep.”

Rescue teams were forced to improvise as equipment was stretched, and in one case a snow drift was transformed from a treacherous obstacle to a lifesaving cushion.

Lynne Crombie, operations director at social care provide SB Cares, said: “We have a Fiat Panda 4x4 which helps at this time of year, but we knew it would be able to go everywhere in those conditions.

“The team in Peebles that support the clients in West Linton decided to make an attempt because they were determined to reach their clients. They got within three miles of West Linton in really bad conditions and came across a three-foot deep snow drift and got stuck.

“A tractor was sent out but it didn’t have towing equipment, so to get them out they banked up a load of snow behind the vehicle, pushed the snow which then pushed the vehicle to get them back out to the road and on to their job in West Linton, and went out the next day to do it all again when the conditions were a bit better.

“The communication between us, mountain rescue and the carers meant that we had two carers and two mountain rescue guys transporting an elderly lady from her home in Hawick to a care home.

“We had a transportation issue for the lady whose main carer had died, something that would not normally pose a challenge but at time the conditions were at their absolute worst.

“It was a great team effort, and that was a theme throughout the period. One of the carers volunteered to stay out and buy bread and milk for clients, even though she wasn’t working, and there are numerous stories of that happening.

“One carer actually stayed at a care home for four nights, and we provided accommodation for Borders General Hospital staff at nearby care homes because they were struggling to get out.

“There were no staff illnesses and everyone worked morning and night to check on people. We do around 2,000 visits a day and there were no major issues, which is pretty remarkable.”

ESSENTIALS Essentials like bread and milk were in short supply in the Borders as roads were blocked and panic buying cleared the shelves.

It was a similar story across much of the country with supermarkets in major cities struggling to replenish stocks despite deliveries being made two days after the Siberian storm swept in.

But as roads remained blocked in thye Borders and supplies fell dangerously low, one charitable restaurateur decided to bake his own.

Sal De Martino, of Hunters Stables in St Boswells, baked around 100 loaves in his pizza oven and donated the proceeds to Cash For Kids.

“The local shop was struggling with the bread supply so my wife Gail and I decided to do something for the community,” he said.

“We only moved here four years ago, and I like the spirit in the Borders. We get a lot of support from the community and the surrounding area so we wanted to give something back.”

Sal says the Beast From The East also tore through his home town of Sorrento in southern Italy, which doesn’t usually get quite as much snow as the Scottish Borders.

She added: “Their pipes have frozen and they are struggling. We are coping because we’re used to it, but imagine how it feels over there.”

The bar at the Buccleuch Arms also had a bumper week as patrons made the most of their unexpected days off work.

 The bar ran out of a cider, and gave out gallons of free hot chocolate to shivering guests, many of whom extended their stay in the adjoining rooms.

COMMUNITY SPIRIT A COMMUNITY in the hills overlooking Galashiels were amongst the most isolated in Borders despite several supermarkets within easy walking distance in normal conditions.

Rachel Campbell, 43, knows how treacherous the slope at Ellwyn Terrace can be after her car slid downhill into a double-decker bus in 2011 – so her 11-year-old son Lewis wasn’t prepared to let any of his neighbours take the risk.

He organised a team of six local children to go door-knocking around the neighbourhood offering supply runs to the local shops on their sleds.

“Loads of people on the street couldn’t get out because the huge hill, which is the only way out of the street,” he said.

“We heard that other kids in Britain were helping out on Newsround and we thought that was a good idea. Everyone on the street knows each other, and nobody is mean so it’s a nice place to live. We got bread, milk, newspapers, sweets — and even wine.”

Father Colin, 51, helped out with the supply run for goods that the kids were just a bit too young to buy themselves.  “It’s a relatively close knit community and people recognised right away that conditions were horrendous,” he said.

“Helping each other out was the right thing to do. You don’t appreciate how difficult it can be until you get a red warning from the Government, and then you wonder how people will cope.  “You can’t drive a car, and you go to the supermarket and there is nothing left, with shelves bare for days during and after the event. It just makes you think how vulnerable you are.”

INCREDIBLE JOURNEY IT was an unprecedented storm that caused havoc across the country.

But it also saw heroic deeds to match as emergency services workers showed grit and determination to beat the lack of transport and deep snow drifts to continue helping those in desperate need.

In some areas, such as Edinburgh, Fife and Tayside, soldiers were drafted in to help get key NHS staff into work as they would have been unable to get in otherwise.

In the Border a carer has told how she walked around 40 miles through the snow to look after vulnerable residents trapped in their homes.

Fiona McDermid, 57, from Selkirk, trudged through several feet of snow to ensure every single one of them had their needs met throughout the weather emergency.

“My phone’s step tracker clocked 40 miles over four days, including 16 miles in one day alone,” said Ms McDermid, who works for social care provider SB Cares.

“It was hard going and I was up to my knees at some points.

“I wasn’t the only one who walked for miles, the majority of support workers did as we had no other option. I’m part of the outlying team so I got out to Lilliesleaf and up the Yarrow Valley, so I usually travel by car because you can get more clients in.

“It was a long walk and it was a struggle to find time to get a break and get something to eat, and we were under a lot of pressure so I was absolutely knackered by the end of the snow. We work four days on and four days off, so I was glad of my four days off by the end of it.”

Mandy Fox, 49, a carer from St Boswells, said: “It’s a good service. Having worked in nursing homes I can see that it is better to see people in their own homes. St Boswells isn’t that big, only a few miles across, so I didn’t do anything like some of the others did.

“But first thing in the morning with driving snow hammering into your face, you’re soaking, before you start work.  “The old ones were worried about us. I heard ‘Aw hen, you shouldn’t be out in this’ a lot. It was distressing for them because they don’t want to see us go through that.  “There is still community spirit out there when we need it.”

EMERGENCY RESPONSE IT is simply called The Bunker.

Six feet below Scottish Borders Council headquarters in St Boswells is a lead-lined emergency co-ordination centre, originally designed as a Cold War nuclear shelter and equipped with its own air, water and electrical supply.

Today it is the base for major emergencies, including the Beast from the East, and also major events such as the Jim Clark Rally.

Jim Fraser, emergency planning officer at Borders Council, said: “We ran the operation 24/7 running 12-hour shifts from the Tuesday until 6pm on the Sunday, and we were brought in by 4x4 during the red ‘do not travel’ period which was quite hairy as it was very deep snow.

“We established a Resilient Communities initiative around five years ago, where we have a co-ordinator in each of the 40 or so local communities.

“They are trained and equipped with hard hats, personal protection gear, jackets, thermal gloves, foot grips, snow shovels, first aid kits, torches, sandbags and road salt.

“They do regular training for things like missing persons, train crashes and power cuts, and you might have up to 50 volunteers in these communities, and they do exercises in things like missing persons, train crashes, power cuts and Prevent (terrorism training).

“We got early indications from the Met Office that there was bad weather coming, so I circulated it to the core response group of senior managers, and when the yellow warnings started to come in we set up a commend structure for social care, education, roads and neighbourhood services.

“We alerted the public well in advance, around five days ahead, through our messaging system which reaches about 5,000 people in local area in the hope the elderly people would prepare in advance, get bread and milk in and not go out during the bad weather.”