The Day After Tomorrow.

I work in a large town somewhere in Suffolk. Let’s call it Utopia.

“Early weather reports are suggesting the public, particularly if you live in the East of England should prepare for snow.” – BBC Reporter, two days before.

“We have never been more prepared. We have stock piled ten times the amount of salt and grit we had this time last year. We are ready.” – Spokesman for Suffolk County Council and mirrored by another in Essex.

“The people of the east of England are today waking up to hear weather reports saying there is going to be winds blowing over from Siberia and that this will bring a lot of snow with it. I kind of doubt that, this is England. I mean… We don’t really get snow this time of year do we?!” – A member of the publics reaction to the BBC weathers ‘extremist’ reporting.

“The snow is expected to fall over night. Experts predict a fall of at least six inches.” – Local weather report on the day.

“Yes, we’ve watched the weather reports, yes as I said before we are prepared. As a matter of fact we have seventy drivers extra and they will all be reporting in at 6pm. They will be on standby from then on.” – Spokesman for Suffolk County Council. Three hours prior to the fall.

At roughly 5 pm on Thursday 17th the snow began to fall. It was earlier than expected and it caught us all by surprise. The sheer amount that fell in the first hour was more than any of us thought possible in England. Now before I go any further I don’t want you to think I am trying to make this into some tragic hollywood style story. No, I just want to get down on paper the events how I saw them as a paramedic on duty that day. I’m sure the rest of the world ground on as usual oblivious to awful cock up going on around them but hey, that’s just life isn’t it?

If you had been out had about on that day, christmas shopping or whatever, you too would have thought, ‘Gosh! That’s a fair bit of snow. I thought that wasn’t supposed to come to tonight?’ You wouldn’t be wrong for thinking that either. Hell, thats what we all thought. I mean that’s what we were told wasn’t it? Then as time dragged on and the traffic in front of you started to back up you’d likely start getting a bit concerned. You’re an hour away from home and you’ve moved maybe half a mile in the last hour. Worse still is that the snow has not stopped. If anything its coming down thicker and quicker if that seems possible. You look outside your window and see people trudging through snow thats laying on the pavement. Its at least three inches already. You notice your fuel light is going to come on if you don’t fill up soon so you make a point of pulling into the next garage you slowly approach. Oh dear, the garage has closed its doors and switched its pumps off. You sit in your car paralyzed with dread. Its getting bitterly cold out. The snow is heavier than ever, you’ve got no fuel, little Johnny and Mable are starting to get hungry and cry, your heating is not adequate and… wait, over there! Why, there’s an ambulance sitting next to one of the pumps. One of the paramedics is walking over right now in his hi-vis jacket. You wind the window down.

‘You need to turn around miss. The fuel station is closed,’ I say.

You look at me gob smacked. Your eyes are brimming with tears and you wince as your children scream.

‘Why?’ you ask as I move to walk away. I shout over my shoulder to busy and caught up in what the hell I and my colleagues are going to do to notice how cold and uninterested the words that come out are.

‘There’s no bloody grit. Chief in there can’t keep the forecourt open if its covered in ice,’ I say gesturing to a man in the forecourt shop sitting behind his till all nice and warm. And with that I’m gone.

I walked away from that car without a seconds thought. The sounds of the screaming children abruptly muffled by the stressed out mum closing her window.

My colleague was actually filling up at the time I had that brief conversation. We’re allowed you see. The petrol stations have to keep a reserve for us and allow us to fill up when we need. Incidentally had I turned up in my own car and flashed my ID I would have been able to fill up too. It’s not just the vehicles. Vehicles are useless without staff to drive them.

We finished filling and left. Anarchy had started early. We did not want to be around to watch the public shouting abuse and gesticulating mob fashion at the poor clerk indoors. It just goes to show how close to a complete break down our society is, when the most minor of things occurs. I say minor because, not 300 miles further north is Scotland. Now I’m pretty sure they won’t be acting the same way these crazed-its-the-end-of-world-nutters are acting. What about the Swiss? I’ll bet they’d be laughing their arses off. England! One little snow storm and they fall to pieces. Its true, we do fall to pieces. Then again, it doesn’t matter how minor the weather is if you’re not prepared for it.

We were most definitely not prepared.

By 8pm, Utopia was at a standstill. Literally. The major junctions and roads were gridlocked and nothing was going anywhere.

Those that tried had pretty good odds on not getting to their destination either by getting stuck which was the most likely option or by coming off the road altogether and crashing.

I lost track of the number of road traffic accidents I heard over the radio. But why? Why was this happening?

We got a red call to a woman with a broken hand up in a nearby town. Ordinarily it would take us maybe fifteen to twenty minutes to get there on blue lights from Utopia. On this occasion it took us an hour and a half. The A14 was down to somewhere in the region of 10 – 20mph for the majority of the journey. To make matters worse… it was just a bloody hand injury for crying out loud! Why the hell someone up in the control centre couldn’t have seen sense and told them to sod off I don’t know. No sooner had I got the patient aboard the husband announced matter of factly that he’d be following in his car. I gave my best sneer and evil eye and slammed the door. I think he could tell we were not impressed.

I heard a cardiac arrest (someones heart has stopped beating – this person is dead without help) go out in the immediate area and a roll over RTA (a car has rolled over, likely trapping the occupants inside) somewhere in Utopia as I rejoined the A14. My fists clenched till my knuckles cracked as I listened to the woman in the back making demands of my colleague and asking why we weren’t going faster. My colleague to his credit, kept his cool and simply grinned back. A bit of drool swung pendulum like from his gritted teeth (this is how to tell if this particular colleague is stressed out – you watch for the drool bungie) as his glared at her. It must have worked as she apparently wouldn’t dare make eye contact again for the rest of the hour long journey back in.

So, between us getting that call and finally dropping the bitch off and hospital our ambulance had been tied up for nearly three and a half hours. On any other day we should have knocked that one out in around one hour. This was happening all over the county. It didn’t take long before we had no ambulances left to send. The police were in a similar pickle, and the fire brigade I am happy to say didn’t know what had hit them. No sleep for them tonight. Gits.

A Thursday night this close to christmas is going to a busy one for everyone involved in any area of public services. The snow really couldn’t have come at a worse time. Most of the major drinking and eating establishments had some form of christmas do on and it was late night shopping.

A little before midnight, the buses decided that they were not going to play anymore. It was just too dangerous on the roads, and they couldn’t move for traffic anyway. Not half an hour after they had pulled out the taxies also decided that they had had enough. Now I am no mathematician but to my reckoning that left a few thousand people stuck with no way home either because all public transport was suspended or because they simply could not get out of Utopia with the roads in the state they were in.

So, what happens now? Well, if your not stuck freezing in your car somewhere, in a ditch upside down, getting hypothermic outside waiting for a taxi that will never arrive then your probably tucked all nice and snug indoors and completely oblivious to nightmare that hasn’t really even started yet.

Its just gone midnight and the snow is still falling. A call comes in for a man collapsed in the street. Initial reports are sparse but we know he’s young and we know he’s not half a mile from the hospital. There are no ambulances available.

A car has span out of control and gone sideways into a tree in the middle of nowhere. He can forget it. There are no ambulances available and even if there was it will be diverted way before it even makes out of Utopia. Gotta hit those times!

People are freezing on the A14 and A12. They abandon their cars and walk.

The calls to people outside and freezing go through the roof.

We have nothing to send.

An ambulance fast response vehicle (erm… it’s snowing?), okay response vehicle is dispatched to the collapsed male in town. It doesn’t make it. It spins off the road instead and gets stuck in the snow.

And on and on.

The male collapsed in the street did eventually get a response. He was twenty eight and he died because his heart had stopped while he walking home from a night out on the town.

A lot of the people who abandoned their cars on the roads were able to find their way to a late night Tesco. It had remained open and was sheltering anyone who needed it. A couple of hotels had also done the same.

Yet what had happened?

The gritters did eventually make it out on to the road but it was too late. The snow was too thick and deep and all the shit they sprayed just sat on top. Apparently they had been taken completely by surprise. Nearly six hours had passed before they were able to mount a response in force, around about the time they had expected the snow in the first place.

So there you have it. A bit sensationalist you may think, but hey I see this shit first hand. I am sure if you yourself work in any of the emergency services you may be able to testify to the utter chaos an unprepared town can find itself subject too. Maybe you have seen worse or maybe you think I am talking out of my arse. Well whatever you may think, if you ever find yourself in a blizzard in England, think carefully before you try and call for help. Do you really need help? Because I guarantee there will be plenty who do.