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