Storm warning not heeded

 As a country we're not very good at taking weather warnings seriously.  After the red warning was sent out I saw numerous posts saying things like "it's just a wee bit wind" or "it'll blow itself out quickly".

Yet this time, Storm Eowyn, packed a bit of a punch.  I've lived in the same area all my life having had no desire to move away from it.  I have never seen the damage from a storm like I have today.  Trees down, one lying across a street just around the corner from me, in another street a huge branch came off a tree and went through the back window of a car (no one in it, thankfully).  A chimney came off a roof nearby which was actually one of the better looking ones in the street.

In the local park there are trees down everywhere and some work that was getting done has been completely destroyed meaning the workers will have to start over.  Across the country Eowyn has brought down roofs and buildings and numerous fences.

Of course though, people don't take it seriously and were caught out this time by shops shutting.  Scotrail had announced on Thursday there would be no trains on Friday.  Our buses decided they weren't going to run either in the storms predicted peak times of 10am-5pm.  The advice was not to travel.  Supermarkets closed and messages came out from GP surgeries saying they were working with skeleton staff and would be in touch with patients.

Yet social media (mostly Facebook) was awash with people complaining about the lack of services.  Lots of questions asking when the shops would be open as they 'had nothing in'.  Why don't they have anything in? The weather warning had been out most of the week therefore there was the whole week to nip into the shops and make sure there was 'something' in.  I went for mine on Thursday and bumped into my auntie who was also a day early but had decided not to chance it by leaving it until Friday.

It's not panic buying (as I've seen suggested) to go shopping the day before you normally do.  It's common sense.  It's not over-reacting to say you're going to stay in, again, common sense.  It's not scaremongering for the Met office to issue a red warning when, in fact, Eowyn was deserving of it.  

What is good is that services like Lothian Buses looked at driver and passenger safety and said no, they weren't willing to put that at risk.  Yes, it is inconvenient for people who would have used those services between the hours they were off the road.  Though it would make people question if they needed to travel.  Yes, many would - nurses and workers in hospitals, people working in our 999 services and some other professions too.  It would be silly to expect supermarket workers, for example, to have to get to work so it's right that most supermarkets closed.  

Please don't complain when you've been given lots of warning that a storm is coming but you couldn't muster the common sense to shop a day earlier or think about how you might get somewhere if the buses or trains went off.

I did see one sad post and I hope the person gets help.  In a local group someone posted anonymously asking if anyone knew of a shop or pub that was open as they badly needed a drink.   That's a worry for that person.  

Eowyn seeming to be blowing himself out now, so off you go and let's not be seeing you again.