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Storm Arwen - Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care provides the latest update on services


By David Porter

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The latest position on the resilience response to Storm Arwen and an update on the impact on services has been provided by Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership.

Power

The picture is changing quite dramatically and despite continuing efforts, it is now expected that it may take several days to have all our communities reconnected by SSEN.

Priority locations are being shared by us with SSEN and the company is sourcing additional generators to facilitate the provision of welfare and care to our most vulnerable communities at this time.

Large generators are en-route to Deeside which, if they can be connected, will help bring some limited power to several communities.

Work is also underway to source additional food trucks to be distributed across our communities in Aberdeenshire.

As power is restored in the areas of Aberdeenshire where the food trucks are currently located, they will be relocated to serve other areas of Aberdeenshire still without power.

SSEN has confirmed that they will also reimburse members of the public in areas without power who buy hot food and drinks from local restaurants, cafes and hot food takeaways.

Further detail is available on SSEN’s social media platforms.

They have brought in additional catering vans to these areas:

• Aboyne – The Green - Fish and Chips

• Cruden Bay – Main Street – Catering

• Strichen – Strichen Park – Catering

• Keith – Fish and Chips

• Kintore – Catering

• Tarland – Catering

• Ballater – Fish and Chips

An ongoing concern to all partners is the vulnerability of certain people within our communities, and the Local Resilience Partnership is doing all it can to provide support.

However we would encourage communities to continue to keep an eye on vulnerable and elderly neighbours who may be requiring additional assistance.

A rest centre has been set up in Ballater due to the ongoing lack of power in parts of Royal Deeside and as a priority we are looking to set up additional rest centres in the following communities:

• Braemar

• Alford

• Kemnay

• Deeside

• Donside

• Hatton

• Huntly

• Lumsden

However, these cannot operate without power, so the key message remains at present for people to stay at home and avoid travelling on the roads network.

Diesel has now been provided for back-up generators in our community hospitals and care homes in Aberdeenshire. We will continue to monitor this situation and provide more diesel if necessary. Additional staff have been mobilised to provide care and support in our sheltered housing and very sheltered housing complexes.

Water

Scottish Water distributed bottled water across Aberdeenshire last night.

They have engineers on site utilising generators to reinstate water supplies until mains power is restored.

Work is underway to reinstate the water supply across the region and provide more bottled water during the course of the day with priority currently being the Huntly area.

In terms of Scottish Water issues you can check for local updates here: https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/In-Your-Area/Latest-In-Your-Area

Schools

The Education and Children’s Services Leadership Team agreed that all schools will be closed for pupils and staff tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday. The rationale behind the decision was that the extent of the damage across all schools is not yet fully known and won’t be known until tomorrow when the decision can be reviewed.

It would be unsafe for us to assume which schools haven’t been affected particularly given the ongoing challenges around power outages, heating, damage, road conditions etc.

When we have staff on the ground tomorrow morning, we will have a far better picture of the impact on the school estate.

We appreciate the uncertainly must be challenging for communities but please be assured that every effort is being made to move this situation on as safely and as quickly as possible.

We will provide an update tomorrow in terms of provision for remote learning and what facilities may be used to support communities in the various clusters – ie provision of hot food/refreshments.

Waste Services

All Household Recycling Centres will remain closed on Monday and staff will be made available to support other services. We anticipate our household waste collections will proceed as normal tomorrow, but residents should anticipate some disruption.

Health and Social Care Partnership

The Partnership has cancelled all learning disability day centre services from Monday and all Covid vaccination centres are also closed on Monday (see re-booking link below).

All lateral flow testing for those with Covid and our Collect Only sites scheduled for Monday are cancelled.

In terms of GPs, the decision will lie with the practice themselves if they have power and water and can continue to support their local community.

Housing

Repair teams will be reprioritised to focus on emergency repairs meantime. There will continue to be a focus on homelessness to ensure anyone requiring support is re-housed. Tenancy Services are being diverted from normal work to contact all residents to ensure they are okay and will be putting resources into sheltered housing to ensure that we have appropriate cover.

Our advice to all our tenants and housing association residents is to remain in their homes.

If residents need an urgent social care service outside office hours they should call us on 03456 081206.

Live Life Aberdeenshire

As a result of the ongoing disruption caused by Storm Arwen the decision has been taken to close all Live Life Aberdeenshire facilities to the public on Monday and Tuesday. Live Life Aberdeenshire staff may be asked to once again support the wider Council and Health & Social Care teams to ensure safety and wellbeing of Aberdeenshire residents.

They will be asked to keep in contact with line managers to understand the situation within their usual place of work.

Service Points/Helpline

It is our intention to open our Service Points tomorrow (Monday) provided they have power and water.

A HAC Storm Arwen - 0808 1963384 - is to be stood up from 9am Monday, November 29 for an initial period of 48 hours before being reviewed. Opening hours 9am-10pm Monday and 7am-10pm thereafter.

Passenger transport

All school transportation has been cancelled on Monday and Tuesday. All social care transport, A2B dial-a-bus services and Ready2Go demand responsive transport have been cancelled on Monday.

This will help free up both vehicles and drivers in the event of a requirement to transport residents to rest centres and other support services. Public bus services on the commercial network will be decided by the operators.

Roads/Travel

We would urge people not to travel unless their journey is essential.

If you must head out, allow extra time for your journey, ensure your vehicle is sufficiently fuelled and drive to the road conditions. Consider taking some warm clothes, food and water within your vehicle, in case of delays, and ensure your mobile phone is fully charged.

There is a Met Office yellow warning for ice until 11am tomorrow morning (Mon) and our gritters are already out treating routes this afternoon and are scheduled to go out again tomorrow from 5.30am.

Work continues to clear windblown debris from the road network as well as carry out winter maintenance.

This does not mean that the road network is safe to travel on given the perseverance of wintry weather across Aberdeenshire and increasing instances of delayed tree fall as a result of the storm.

Drivers should continue to exercise caution and only undertake necessary journeys.

While we have continued to remove fallen trees across our roads network today, some areas of the rural network do remain unpassable. Our Roads teams will be inspecting the network tomorrow and the felling will proceed in the days to come.

Please be advised that the snowgates at Glenshee and The Lecht remain closed as does the route over the Cairn ‘o Mount.

For those without power, we will continue to refer them to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) by calling 105 for updates on power cuts and welfare support available or check PowerTrack at https://www.ssen.co.uk/Home/

Trees down, lights out and road faults - https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/apps/roadfaults/


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