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

@Onionpatch

Like for like, the buildings and trees in Scotland and the North of England are better designed/developed to withstand higher winds so winds of a similar speed and direction will cause less damage than they would further South.

🤣🤣🤣 Taylor Wimpey certainly does not know about this.

The news yesterday was full of Eunice, there was a COBRA meeting etc despite London / SE not being identified as red until today.

One disgrace over Arwen was the time it took to restore power to so many people. Long running ‘chronic’ problems are always less covered in the daily headlines, but I did hear lots of interviews with people 4 and more days into a power cut. It was covered steadily on R4 for example.

Where are people getting the information from that homes in the North east are built to withstand wind whereas they aren't in other parts of the country?

I hope the red areas today are not as badly effected as the North east was, hopefully with all the planning thats been going on you are better prepared and have support in place.

There was plenty of news about Arwen being a rare red warning.
However it was directly effecting my dd so I noticed it. If it hadn't been her area I'd probably not have gone to read the articles, so might have thought there wasn't much coverage.
In her area they closed things early, and had plenty of warnings about staying in (ironically the closing things meant she then had to go out to sort them out!)

But it wasn't red warning in the SE until 3am, and there already was a Cobra meeting planned yesterday so you can't blame it on just being interested because it's London and the SE. That kind of makes my point that you read the news less carefully when it doesn't directly involve you.

Surely it is about wind strength and direction, and danger to life. This looks like a substantially more powerful storm...

YABU.

I'd like to think that it was the government learning lessons from Storm Arwen. However, I'm inclined to agree with the OP that it is bias towards London and the south east, or fearing a backlash for yet another lack of preparation.

I was starting to think it was just me that had noticed this. The response up here was poor - no homes should be without power for 2 weeks and the army wasn't brought in until almost a week after the storm. Of course the South won't be left without action, because we'll, it's the South. It will be interesting to see their response after the storm

Our local authority and schools made a decision well before any cobra meeting happened.

122mph strongest ever recording in England. Definitely preferential treatment.

Is this not learning from Arwen though?

It’s the first time the met office have issues a red warning for London, the most heavily populated area of the country. It’s also incredibly rare that the whole country is under red/amber warnings, it’s usually a bit more regionalised than that. Plus the impact of the high spring tide brings greater risk of flooding than we’ve seen with other storms.

But don’t let all that stop the chips gathering on your shoulders.

Yes the response to Arwen up here was very poor. We were in the red zone although thankfully relatively unscathed but we had friends who were without power for a week and there was so little provision for food/shelter for them.

They seemed to have their act together for Malik/Corrie as the food vans were deployed almost immediately this time, leisure centres opened up for shelter. But barely anyone on here was speaking about Arwen, I guess cos it affected the north!

My DH is from Devon and moved to north-east of Scotland about 10 years ago, and he still gets excited when it snows

@Hugasauras

My DH is from Devon and moved to north-east of Scotland about 10 years ago, and he still gets excited when it snows

Yes, because despite what people think, it doesn't always snow in Scotland. I've lived on the East Coast (often classed as North east) and we very rarely get snow.

I do often have to put on my winter kilt and go activate the manual brakes we recently fitted to the haggis' (haggis? Haggises? Haggii?) so they don't blow away though 😉

@MargaretThursday

There was a link to a news article in the OP which clearly showed a RED WEATHER WARNING for Storm Arwen, and some clever MNer still came on the thread and exclaimed that Arwen wasn't a red warning!!

Lets see if there are power cuts after Eunice and see if it takes 12 days to restore said power.......

@Onionpatch

Can i let you into a secret about snow. The south east loves it. The place only 'grinds to a halt' because its rare and we get excited, pretend nothing can get us to work and rush out to play for the couple of days every other year or so that snow settles. I grew up in scotland and my first snow experience in the south east was me walking to where i was supposed to be, feeling all tough and special and then realising everyone else was having fun.

It’s because we all know deep down we are over worked and under paid. Any thinly valid excuse to have a break and we grab it.

Yes I think he was spoiled as the year he moved up was the year we had a lot of snow where I am (2013 maybe?) and I think he assumed it was always like that! We've had snow today actually so he and DD went skipping off to nursery together jolly as can be. And now it's slush and a seagull has got into one of our bin bags and spread crap everywhere. A joyous wintry scene.

Bit of both. Arwen was a red alert and just as severe, if not more so than Eunice.

Arwen was in Scotland so the Scottish government should have got their act together and sorted something out, with or without the UK government.

However Arwen hit the NE of Scotland which SNP do not care about so nothing got put in place and it was chainsaws at the ready (& still is) for anyone who has one. Roads were shut, power off for thousands and mobile networks down. Ditto for when Malik hit.

@Iamnotamermaid

Bit of both. Arwen was a red alert and just as severe, if not more so than Eunice.

Arwen was in Scotland so the Scottish government should have got their act together and sorted something out, with or without the UK government.

However Arwen hit the NE of Scotland which SNP do not care about so nothing got put in place and it was chainsaws at the ready (& still is) for anyone who has one. Roads were shut, power off for thousands and mobile networks down. Ditto for when Malik hit.

Er.. Arwen was also in England!

@Iamnotamermaid

Bit of both. Arwen was a red alert and just as severe, if not more so than Eunice.

Arwen was in Scotland so the Scottish government should have got their act together and sorted something out, with or without the UK government.

However Arwen hit the NE of Scotland which SNP do not care about so nothing got put in place and it was chainsaws at the ready (& still is) for anyone who has one. Roads were shut, power off for thousands and mobile networks down. Ditto for when Malik hit.

Arwen was not just in Scotland. In fact, the OP is mostly referring to NE England, which - I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm mistaken - aren't under the governance of SNP.

@Hugasauras

Yes I think he was spoiled as the year he moved up was the year we had a lot of snow where I am (2013 maybe?) and I think he assumed it was always like that! We've had snow today actually so he and DD went skipping off to nursery together jolly as can be. And now it's slush and a seagull has got into one of our bin bags and spread crap everywhere. A joyous wintry scene.

I hope you took a photo to print as this year's Christmas card

I drove DC into college this morning, just 20 minutes further South and encountered vehicles with snow around their windscreens, and even a few wee piles at the roadside. Likely commuted in, but still.... we just have rain and wind!

Arwen was in Scotland

Was it shite. I’m about 80 miles south of the Scottish border and Arwen was very destructive here. Further south, into County Durham, we had service users without power for up to 2 weeks.

This neatly proves the OP’s point. Because it was “north” you’ve jumped straight to it being Scotland and not the UK government’s problem. The North East of England is just that. England.

Funnily enough a friend and I were just talking about this this morning. We're in Northumberland and had no power for four days after Arwen. We couldn't get through to the priority helpline at Northern Powergrid (DD has SN). We had no phone or internet at home so had to drive to try and get a phone signal and when we did get a signal it was impossible to get through.

I didn't see a single person from Northern Powergrid, the Council or anyone else in our village. After four days hot food was being provided 20 miles away (by locals). I gave my 87 year old neighbour candles and a lamp as he had been sleeping in a chair in his living room and had run out of candles. If I hadn't checked on him he would have been in the dark for days.

Luckily I was able to afford to stay in a hotel for two nights as we had no means of cooking. Although we did get our hotel costs reimbursed they are still "looking into" whether we are entitled to any compensation and that is only because I sent them an email chasing this.

So yes I do think there is a disparity in the way things are dealt with when it doesn't affect the south-east and London.

YANBU

It got a lot more coverage probably because it affects the South.