COMMUNITY PRAISE

Emergency services also received across the board praise for their unstinting work , bringing much needed relief to those cut off by the snow or trapped in their homes without heat, light and food.

Staff at the Joey Dunlop Leisure Centre and at the Millennium Centre in Loughgiel worked around the clock preparing food, offering washing facilities as well as playing host to a number of Agencies including NIE representatives who were able to keep customers up to date with developments.

New members of the Community Rescue Team from the Stranocum area had the opportunity to put in practice some of their recent training by helping out at Loughgiel, bringing meals to the elderly and assisting with transport.

Mr. Brian Edgar, from Ballymoney Borough Council's Environmental Health Department, said the response from the community had been phenomenal.

Mr. Edgar revealed that one thousand people had been catered for at the Millennium Centre coming from Armoy, Dunloy, Cullybackey, Broughshane and Clough. On Sunday, more than 200 people enjoyed an Easter lunch.

At the JDLC, almost 100 people had availed of the facilities since Thursday with one family spending a night at the centre on emergency beds placed upstairs, Mr. Benny Knight revealed.

Their time was made all the more tolerable after local businessman, Basil Knipe, donated a 50 inch television set. Tesco have also been praised for supplying food to the centres.

The Centres closed up on Sunday afternoon after NIE engineers had restored power to most if not all of the affected homes. Ballymoney Councillor, Alderman Harry Connolly, and the Mayor, Cllr. Frank Campbell, praised the work of NIE.

Both representatives described the situation as "very serious", but said the men had done in several days what would normally have taken most of a month.

Praise was also voiced by both to the Housing Executive and other Agencies.

Throughout last week, NIE engineers supported by teams from as far away as the Republic of Ireland and mainland GB fought against bitterly cold winds and deep snow to reach and repair powerlines which had been damaged by a relatively rare phenomenon known as 'ice accretion.'

Wet snow combined with cold northerly winds created a build up of ice on electricity equipment and lines, causing them to sag and in some cases pulling them down. This phenomenon is known as ice accretion which is an entirely weather-related problem. It occurs only where a specific set of weather conditions coincide.

- high wind, temperatures between 1 and -1 C and snow - is that the wind blows wet snow onto power lines. The wind-chill factor promptly freezes the snow to the wire. As snow builds up on that side of the conductor facing the wind, its weight twists the conductor round, exposing more conductor to ice build up.

The effects were devastating with supplies cut off and, in some cases, leaving potentially deadly wires lying on the ground.

See pages 3, 4, 5 and 23 for more.