Last Thursday, November 24th, winds gusted up to 82 mph at the Butt
of Lewis as high winds strafed the north and west of Scotland. The storm
had been forecast in advance and prompted extensive cancellations of
ferry services.
By about 4pm, just as it started to get dark, a motorist on the A859
Tarbert to Leverburgh road in Harris, noticed a car partly submerged in
the waters of Loch nan Uidhean, beside the road. The emergency services
were called and they rushed to the scene. The driver of the car, a
26-year old speech therapist from Coulregrein, Stornoway, was extracted
from her vehicle and taken to the Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway,
but tragically died. An investigation is on-going into the cause of the accident, but this occurred at the height of the storm.
Severe weather is part and parcel of life in these islands, and
people tend to take it in their stride. But a fatal accident, in which
the weather is thought have had some part to play, still comes as a
blow. Memories go back nearly seven years, when five members, three
generations, of one family were lost in South Uist at the time of a
severe storm.
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