Snowfall on the west of the island - video

[curiouswombat]

I must start by saying that we live on what was the windward side during this particular snow storm - and most of the snow fell on the leeward side. We had only a couple of inches.

But this video on the BBC news site shows what it is still like on the leeward side.

The farmers on my Friends' List will want to weep, I think.

One farmer has lost almost her stock as she managed to get them into the sheds - and the weight of snow on the roofs caused them to collapse, killing alost all the stock within.

This photo, which is not one of mine, it was taken by someone about 4 miles from our house, gives you the idea;



For those of you unfamiliar with UK road signs, that one is on top of a pole at least 6 feet high. It is the worst weather we have had since 1963 - and the loss of stock is probably worse this time than it was then - lambing has been so badly hit.

Comments

[wildecate.livejournal.com]

Lee posted some pics of Cronk Y Voddy which looked horrific.  I think this weather is going to knock out so many farms.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Is Lee over that side, then? It is just awful over there.

Enough snow for the children to play for a couple of days is fun - but that just... isn't.

[wildecate.livejournal.com]

No he's in Douglas but I think he has friends over that way who took some photos. We sent Kiara her birthday present early last week but it only arrived yesterday and we ordered Dan some lego for his birthday and wherever the warehouse is I think must be in 10 foot of snow because that still hasn't arrived but Dan's quite philosophic about it. Thankfully.

Are you managing to get out and about with your job or are there areas of the island that are just completely unreachable?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Are you managing to get out and about with your job or are there areas of the island that are just completely unreachable?

I'm actually off this week - it was a planned week off. But otherwise it would have been impossible to visit anyone over that side - and I have no idea how the district nurses who cover the west are managing at all.

Usually everyone will ring around, and take over the patients they can most easily reach from home - so any patients up the east coast will be fine, and those in the far northern villages, as the nurses living in the Douglas/Onchan area, and those in Ramsey, can reach them.

I think one of the nurses does live in Peel and so could visit within walking distance inside the town, but I really don't think anyone would get to the people in Kirk Michael, Cronk-y-Voddy etc. The Home care teams will have the same problem.

Where the patients can't be reached, the nurses will ring them up, give them advice and see if they can cope without a visit, even if it is by staying in bed, as long as there is someone else in the house; but if there is a real need - for example an insulin dependant diabetic, living alone, who cannot give their own insulin, the emergency services will call in the helicopter crews.

My guess is that the elderly lady rescued by Prince William from her cottage at Cronk y Voddy was someone like that. The very disabled lady on my caseload who lives over there has a husband who would make sure the fire was lit and she got hot drinks, even if he had to boil water on the fire, between looking after any stock in the farm buildings, because he really is too old to go out to search for his own sheep.