Response to storm Arwen vs Eunice

[ArwenVsEunice]

Curious to hear other peoples POV. Does anyone feel let down by the government’s response to storm Eunice versus storm Arwen, both with rare red warning storms?

For Eunice the Government have held an emergency cobra meeting, thousands of schools have been closed and there’s huge national media coverage. I think this absolutely is the right thing to do.

When Arwen was brewing there was no cobra meeting, just general advice to be careful from the Met Office. it was in the media but only to a very small extent www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-59419772. We live in the areas affected by Arwen and it was pretty terrifying when it hit. It took out trees and roofs local to where we live, at PIL it blew down their garden wall and fencing and left a 6ft hole. It knocked out power to nearly 250,000 homes. It took at least 5 days to get the army in to help those still cut off. I’ve not seen anything like it in my lifetime.

The optimistic part of me likes to think the government learnt from Arwen and have now pulled their socks up to deal with Eunice the way they should have done but the cynical part of me just feels like they weren’t bothered about Arwen as it was up in Scotland and the North East

AIBU to feel this way?

YANBU - it’s yet another example of the government not caring unless its a problem that affects the south/London

YABU - the government didn’t recognise the severity of Arwen and have learnt from their mistakes with Eunice

Well something has just happened that to me as totally proved your point OP.
My parents have friends in India, they have visited etc. We have a group chat which they used while they were there to send updates etc, with the Indian friends also in the group. Currently used to send happy birthdays and a few other updates every now and then.
Obviously there was no mention on Arwen- I wouldn’t expect there to be.
We do live in the north east and had the fence blow over and trees down in the street during Arwen.
Yesterday morning one of the Indian friend messaged the group chat
“We hope you are all keeping well and safe, we have heard about the storm “Younis” and are worrying about you!”
Eunice has been some rain and slightly heavier than usual winds here. They have obviously had coverage in India of the storm in the south of England.

@JuniorMint there's plenty of things wrong with the UK government, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to blame them for the output of Indian media.

[quote Ifailed]@JuniorMint there's plenty of things wrong with the UK government, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to blame them for the output of Indian media.[/quote]
The Indian media will cover things that the U.K. government is doing- so if they have a cobra meeting and put out comment on storm Eunice, then the Indian media will cover that, if they don’t do anything about storm Arwen then the Indian media won’t mention it. Also I think it’s probably likely my friends watch BBC World Service.

@CharacterForming

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

The trees in the north came down not because it was strong but because the winds were blowing the wrong way ?!

The winds where I am in the red zone were 100 miles an hour and highest was 110 recorded. We are still repairing and many parks are still closed. Friends had to stay in hotels as no electricity for weeks.

Do not tell me the wind wasn't strong.

Timing of Eunice was worse than that of Arwen, hence school closures etc.

But the piss-poor sorting of the aftermath of Arwen was shocking - people with no power for 5 days, respite centres set up in village schools, which obviously then had to shut to pupils, where village halls could have been used instead. Not the fault of Westminster decisions as such, but should’ve at least been using army support much sooner.

Power outages in the areas affected by Eunice won’t be allowed to last 5 days - there’ll be far more pressure on power companies to get it sorted, and far better support. As there should have been with Arwen.

Arwen left people without power for longer than five days, my mum's friend and her disabled husband had no power for nearly two weeks. They lost all the food in their freezer, no hot water or heating because there was no electricity to run the boiler, no means to cook hot food so they were living on sandwiches and takeaway, no lights. The helplines were always engaged so they couldn't even get through then when they did get through they were offered a blanket bundle and one flask of hot water per person per day. They still haven't received any compensation for it either.

Arwen was forecast for 3pm just as schools got out. In my opinion they should have finished by 1.30 as by 3pm it was getting bad.

[quote Willyoujustbequiet]@CharacterForming

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

The trees in the north came down not because it was strong but because the winds were blowing the wrong way ?!

The winds where I am in the red zone were 100 miles an hour and highest was 110 recorded. We are still repairing and many parks are still closed. Friends had to stay in hotels as no electricity for weeks.

Do not tell me the wind wasn't strong.[/quote]
The wind was strong, but its effect was disproportionate to its speed because the winds came from the north rather than the west so the trees' root systems weren't developed to handle it - huge numbers of mature trees came down which would have survived even these very high speeds if they'd come from the normal direction. Hence it did much more damage than a "normal" wind of that speed would have done. This is not a controversial point of view, it's literally the first line on Wikipedia.

It doesn't excuse the poor response by the electricity companies though - they knew which direction it would be coming from in advance and while it was an unusual storm it was foreseeable enough that it should have been planned for.

The government didn't think through the threat to life or the difficulties in restoring power, and getting assistance to older or disabled people left without power for days. Eunice potentially covered the whole country and pre planning was put in place to warn people to stay indoors, minimise travel, stay away from the sea, get supplies in. Many areas have voluntary help for people when there are floods Some people don't tie down or secure items that can be blown around, hence the red warnings for the densely populated areas in the South East. It made me check and replace torches, get spare matches and get shopping in I could cook on the gas hob.

Yes red warning for Arwen was from 3pm but even by 2 it was extremely windy, almost enough to blow you off your feet (so could have easily blown kids over)
So timing has nothing to do with it.

I saw a photo on a local fb page of Scottish and southern electricity preparing to hand out emergency packs on the same day as Eunice hit, yet strangely there was nothing in place for Arwen despite thousands of people being without power for days or even weeks…

@JuniorMint

Well something has just happened that to me as totally proved your point OP. My parents have friends in India, they have visited etc. We have a group chat which they used while they were there to send updates etc, with the Indian friends also in the group. Currently used to send happy birthdays and a few other updates every now and then. Obviously there was no mention on Arwen- I wouldn’t expect there to be. We do live in the north east and had the fence blow over and trees down in the street during Arwen. Yesterday morning one of the Indian friend messaged the group chat “We hope you are all keeping well and safe, we have heard about the storm “Younis” and are worrying about you!” Eunice has been some rain and slightly heavier than usual winds here. They have obviously had coverage in India of the storm in the south of England.

That's most likely due to them not understanding the geography of the UK. Its like a storm in Goa and asking if this affected them in Delhi!

@ChoiceMummy Maybe so but they didn’t get in touch with worry after hearing any coverage of Arwen (because they didn’t hear any)

School closure decisions were entirely local, don't blame southerners for your LAs not making a sensible decision during a red warning. I find it insane any LA wouldn't close schools during a red warning.

As for India, I would expect news affecting London to be of greater international importance than the north east purely as its our capital city. Something happening in a random part of France wouldn't make our news but Paris would. Surely that is obvious?

There is an awful lot of resentment that aren't was clearly handled badly but it is all local decisions. Cobra was not mentioned before our LA acted. Nothing prevents an LA making sensible decisions.

I find it baffling why anyone would think the North is on a par with London when it comes to international news.

And we still have no power :)

@DementedPanda

I think in the North we were just expected to put our big coats on and get on with it. People have still got damage to fix (including us) The price of building materials have gone ridiculous.

I bet London would have been fixed by now with financial help.

Actually there was much mocking of “southern softies” by people in the north suggesting that big coats were all that was needed in the north. What you reap, you sow.

I find it baffling that noone has been forthcoming with the information about Scottish and Northern English homes and trees being built to withstand storms

Or sew

@Grilledauberginesrill the whole thread has essentially been mocking the south because it can't possibly be that bad. Mocking southerners is absolutely fine though, obviously.

If our electric comes on even a few hours quicker than it did for the minority left without by Arwen, that will purely be favouritism. I suspect we won't be out as long as we are in a very population dense area so most likely has more options for repair.

[quote Mumofsend]@Grilledauberginesrill the whole thread has essentially been mocking the south because it can't possibly be that bad. Mocking southerners is absolutely fine though, obviously.

If our electric comes on even a few hours quicker than it did for the minority left without by Arwen, that will purely be favouritism. I suspect we won't be out as long as we are in a very population dense area so most likely has more options for repair.[/quote]
Absolutely. Mocking southerners is a hobby for those with big enough chips on their shoulders.

No one as been mocking Southerners. That's not what this thread was originally about. It's about the differences between the handling of the two storms.

It's a well known Geordie saying that the big coats come out only when the weather is extreme. Nothing to do with the south. Just local sayings.

I dont feel mocked.

I do wonder why different power companies respond so differently and different LAs. Our power company is advising power will be back tomorrow by 11pm for the affected people, but before the storm they sent a warning and advice on blankets, candles etc and you can register as a priority person for packs. I dont think that was government led. But does the government put pressure on them to offer a better service?

That’s an interesting question @Onionpatch

I would like to think maybe some lessons actually were learned from Arwen. That would be a good outcome

Thank you @Onionpatch that's exactly the point of the OP reason for starting this thread. There is a glaring difference on how things were handled. I'd like to think its lessons learned etc.

It's no secret that the North loses power a lot, snow conditions due to rural areas created a whole set if other problems. Yet in the media as proved up thread, most people just see the pretty scenery in the news. They don't see the damage, the difficulty, while villages blocked off for days etc. But when there is a weather event in London it's all that is on the news. Its no wonder people up here feel forgotten.

There's been some weird posts, for example claims that house are built better for the wind, oh and apparently the North don't earn enough and should better themselves to move 🤔 plenty North bashing and no understanding.

Yeah my post was about the differences in responses to each storm since they were both red warnings, it did really feel like Arwen wasn't taken as seriously by the government as Eunice was. I do take on board that different LA's will take different actions and I recall it was a Friday when Arwen hit so I can see why pp's have said that schools may not have been told to close. I think my issue is with the government response. There was no Cobra meeting for Arwen and it took days and days for the army to help out. I hope it is different for Eunice.

I've not mocked southerners in my posts. I knew Arwen was a bad storm. It was very dangerous so I knew what was coming with Eunice and didn't feel it was a joking matter. I saw some quite nasty comments made to the point where Mumsnet had to remind people to be nice.

I won't engage in a back and forth argument with anyone but I will say that certain comments really stuck out to me as totally unnecessary and off the mark. Along the lines of the north living in the 1970's, kids not attaining as many A's at GCSE as kids in the south due to not working hard enough, northerners being on benefits and not contributing to GDPR. I couldn't tell if these are genuinely held beliefs or if someone was trying to be controversial to get a rise out of others. If genuinely held I would recommend that person book a trip up to the north east to hopefully enlighten themselves.

I think going forward there will be red grade storms more frequently so I hope that in future they are all taken seriously.

I think the fact a lot of posters didn't realise Arwen was a red graded storm and so felt that Eunice was worse is down to the media. Maybe that is because Eunice was going to affect London and it's our capital city so that's why there was so much focus. I don't see that changing much in the future sadly

The main bit for me is just hoping the government have learnt some lessons and that no one is left without power for days on end following Eunice!