Ti Motorsport

Arwen- The Aftermath

With the arrival of daylight, we were able to see some of the carnage that the storm had brought, as we made our way to civilisation or Hawick as it is known locally. At least there was electricity and phone service, so we were able to get hold of every one. 

Morrisons were our breakfast venue of choice [No one else was open] and it was from there that we ascertained that Jonathan & Jamie had in fact made it back to Longtown but not before a brief excursion into a ditch. Luckily they had been able to extract themselves without the need for external assistance.

Richard and Stefan had fared better than Andrew & I despite the A7 again being blocked beyond Langholm, had taken refuge in a pub. [You couldn't make it up ,could you]. The publican of The Crown in Langholm, realising that there was a bit of a problem, had open the pub and it's function room up to the crews. The staff had called friends and family to help with supplies and bedding, offering great hospitality to a random bunch of misfits. OK, he probably made a bob or two, but I can't think that anyone would begrudge him that. [except of course one of the other publicans in the town, who shopped him to the council, so I'm told]

Safe in the knowledge that everyone was safe, we made our way back to the cabins. The road was still closed but there had been reports of some action. It was 9.30 ish before we were able to continue our journey. It appeared that there had been more than one tree brought down across our bit of road. Looks like the guys on the right had had their work cut out. While all this had been going on, the app which the organisers had been using to deliver bulletins had been out of service. They had given no thought to the fact that regardless of the storm, much of the area had no service, perhaps next time they might put in a temporary mast. It was obvious to almost all, that there would be no rallying today. The Scottish leg of the event would not be happening. but nothing from the organisers.

As we passed through Langholm, we saw the pub which had hosted the lucky crews. For much of the rest of the run back to Longtown, there were signs of frantic activity, as the emergency services sought to restore some sort of order. [Such was the damage caused by Arwen, that some places were not back to normal for over a week]

For Andrew & I, it was time to review our position. At that time, there was no plan from the organisers, we had some work to do on the car and knew just the guys to carry it out. We opted to do our work, roadside by our accommodation. All the comforts of home on a pretty chilly day and an opportunity to introduce Jamie to the delights of roadside servicing.

 

Lets talk about Storm Arwen

So the Forestry Commission wanted us out of the way, did they, well we were happy to oblige. Storm Arwen, which we had been warned about, was all over the news. The local radios stations were giving hourly updates on it's progress and it was definitely making it's presence felt around Kielder. 

We chased the rally car, but never manged to catch it, we did however come across some other crews heading for the A7 and back to H&H in Carlisle. We fell in line  we were after all going back to Carlisle.. It was all going swimmingly, until we rounded a bend, to find our convoy at a halt. A tree was blocking the road. Although there were plenty of people, it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to be moving it. A mass U turn by rally cars & chase crews and it was back to follow my leader. Until then, we had been following the road book and had almost made it to Newcastleton, now we were going back the way we had just come from, before going off piste in search of the A7. 

And off piste, we certainly went. One by one cars pulled off , presumably to check the maps, as we made our way across the moors. A couple of times we had to stop and clear broken branches from across the road. By now the snow was covering the road and the ABS in the 807 was going berserk, as the tyres scrabbled for grip. At one point, Andrew thought of stopping, visibility was so bad but we soldiered on.  One big problem was the lack of a phone signal, which might have enabled us to get a detailed map of our location. It's all very well seeing the odd sign post, not a lot of help if you don't know where the places are. After two and a bit hours of  exploring the moors, we finally managed to get to the A7 at Hawick and naively thought we were out of trouble. Back en route as it were, we were approaching Langholm, when we once again came to a standstill. There had been so much damage all around, trees and branches were down all over the place, power lines and phone lines adding to the problems faced by the emergency crews, who were obviously completely overwhelmed. 

This time, we were faced with about 25 other crews who had all parked up, luckily there was quite a lot of parking in and around Ewes Water Log Cabins and we found a suitable spot, before finding out what was going on. It was inevitable I suppose. Yet another massive tree had come down across the road. It looked like we would be going nowhere for a while. By now it was 11.15, so three and a half hours after leaving Kielder Water.

Having checked all the other rally cars, Our 'boys' weren't here. We, the no signal brigade, had no way of contacting them or Jonathan or Jamie, hopefully enjoying the benefits of our Longtown accommodation.  At least we were warm and dry and relatively safe and we did have our guardian knight.  At times during the night, the skies did clear, briefly, to reveal an amazing star scape. Between cat naps [Andrew just seemed to drop off, he had after all driven through the storm] I listened to Cumbria Radio, what an amazing show they put on for anyone stuck out in the wilds. Seriously good choice of music, loads of local updates, all you could ask of a 'Local' station. Thank you guys.

During the night, we had frequent visits from various emergency response crews, none of whom seemed able to get the road cleared. We also had the odd visit from other crews, checking that we were OK and had food & drink. By 7.00am we were both awake and decided to go back to Hawick, find some phone service & get some breakfast.