Cold starts to bite

Figures released to The Sentinel yesterday show that, in the first five days of this month A&E staff saw a total of 890 people.

While a detailed analysis has not yet been made of the figures, the hospital was able to say that 174 of those had come forward solely in relation to injuries associated with falls due to the weather conditions.

Without the analysis there is no way of knowing at this moment the full extent of the part the atrocious conditions played in the other admissions to Accident and Emergency, including an increase in traffic accidents and illness due to the severity of the weather but a hospital spokesperson said that 124 people required treatment for fractures in that time, 71 of which they were able to directly relate to slips or falls on ice and snow.

Meanwhile, the North West was brought to a virtual standstill as the arctic weather conditions worsened and temperatures plummeted to -13 degrees centigrade. The council was forced to close the cemeteries.

Bus routes in the city were cancelled on Monday, taxi drivers had to stop working and schools throughout the district closed.

Countless organisations were forced to cancel meetings and sports fixtures, including this weekend's North West football league matches. As heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures continued to blight the city on Monday and Tuesday, there was traffic chaos, misery for pensioners and rural dwellers and even the cancellation of a Grand Orange Lodge meeting in the city due to be held today.

A pensioner living in Brigade spoke to the Sentinel on Monday afternoon. The man - who is in his 70s, uses a nebuliser, and did not want to be named - but said he was trapped in his home and hadn't eaten all day.

"80 per cent of the people in here are in bungalows for the elderly and the disabled," he told the paper. "Over the last two weeks Roads Service have been up once. My point of view is that there are disabled people in here who haven't had their breakfast. People are trapped."

Residents of Primity Crescent in Newbuildings complained that Roads Service had not gritted the close despite its Winter Service policy of gritting bus routes. It counts a single bus as 40 vehicles when judging which roads to grit.

DUP Alderman Maurice Devenney said: "Here you have a bus route which they are not gritting. There are two or three bus stops there and a lot of elderly people and carers can't get in an out. It's a serious concern."

Alison Wallace of Newbuildings Community Association concurred: "The difficulty is that it is a bus route and it hasn't been sanded. We have been speaking to people and asking them to throw a bit of sand but it's such a big space it's impossible for us to cover it all."

DUP Alderman Joe Miller said the situation in the Waterside was awful but welcomed a decision by Roads Service to take special measures to grit the aforementioned Brigade and Clements Court to ease the misery of elderly residents.

"It is awful," said Mr Miller. "But I've spoken to Roads Service and they say they are going to come out and grit it and I thank them for that."

Referring to the ongoing wrangle over whether Roads Service or Derry City council is responsible for addressing the treacherous state of the local footpaths, Mr Miller said it was his view that the former should take charge.

Notwithstanding this he said the relevant statutory authorities should get together to develop a coherent policy on how to address extreme weather conditions in future.

"There needs to be agreement between local government and the Assembly at policy level to see what can be done," said Mr Miller. "In the end we are talking about real human misery for people who can't get out."

In the Drumahoe and Tullyally areas the temperature dipped to a bitter -13C in the early hours of yesterday.

David Allen, a firefighter and keen weather-watcher who lives at Ivy Mead, said he could not believe it when he saw his garden temperature gauge.

"That's the coldest I've ever seen it go," he said.