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#Post#: 471-------------------------------------------------- |
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Hurricane.. |
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By: George Date: February 2, 2011, 3:26 am |
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As some of you know, I'm a retired firefighter, I was on blue |
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watch, stationed at Barrhead since 1964, then transferred to |
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Paisley. |
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It was called the Western Area Fire Service, before the |
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Strathclyde Fire Service was introduced. |
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Now you may be thinking, whats that to do with Hurricanes.. |
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Well, it was a discussion we had last night on facebook, about |
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the thunder & lightning we had last night in Shetland. |
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One of my friends suggested that living on Shetland, we should |
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be used to extreme weather. I replied that Shetland was'nt the |
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only place with extreme weather.. |
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So I recounted a story about the Hurricane that struck |
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Strathclyde in 1967.. |
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I was on nightshift that night, the 15th. January 1967.. |
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We were watching the lightning flashing across the sky above |
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Paisley & Glasgow .. |
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Then the bells rang.. |
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We were told to standby at Paisley Fire Station .. |
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So we made our way from Barrhead to Paisley. The first of the |
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damage we saw, was a filling station garage, blown across |
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Caplethill rd. Then on to Neilston rd. You would think that it |
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was the blitze, as, debris was strewn all the way into Paisley.. |
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The Hurricane caused 2.000 people homeless, and worse, it killed |
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20 people, it was terrible.. |
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But we did rescue two people, a man & his wife.. |
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When we arrived at Paisley Fire Station, we got a call to attend |
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a tenement building on Underwood rd, persons reported missing. |
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The chimney breast had fell through the roof into a bedroom, |
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sleeping on the bed was a man and his wife.. |
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They were crushed into the mattress by the sandstone blocks, |
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roofing beams, and other debris .. |
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We cleared the woman first, she was pregnant.. no ambulance was |
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available, so we suggested to the Police that they take her to |
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the Hospital in their police van, which they did.. |
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we toiled away removing the stones and timber from the man, but |
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being careful in case more blocks fell on him .. |
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We eventually cleared the debris from him, and carried him down |
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the stairs, and put him in a Police van for transporting him to |
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hospital.. |
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The reason I told this story, was because I was there, and there |
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is almost nothing about it on the internet.. One of my friends |
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said that you should write about it and other things you did.. |
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unfortunatly I cannot write about some of the things I |
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witnessed. They were too gory to put on the internet.. |
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George.. |
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