By David Siddall

Last updated 15:48, Wednesday, 26 November 2008

IT was 1996 when West Cumbrians made the best of the worst in what one 88-year-old described as the worst white-out since the war.

Snow storm 1996: Hensingham Square, picturesque and hazardous

Some 500 cars, lorries and buses completely blocked the roads between the Howgate Hotel and Hensingham. All routes in and out of Whitehaven were impassable and West Cumberland Hospital could not accept patients.

The drama started at around 8am on a quiet Monday morning as the first snow flakes fell. Within three hours four inches of snow and jack-knifed lorries had started to paralyse traffic.

By the afternoon shops and businesses had closed and people attempted to flee home as Stagecoach bus services and British Rail services ground to a halt.

The traffic jam that built up around the Pelican Garage had a knock on effect all along the A595 to Sellafield. Journey times of 12 to 14 hours were common.

At Sellafield for the first time ever at 6pm on Monday management decided the wisest course of action was to have a controlled shut down of both the Magnox and Thorp plants. As spokesman David Young explained: “We could have continued with production, but in view of the fact that emergency services would not have been able to get through we decided it was best to shut down.”

Two thousand Sellafield workers were forced to remain on site and slept in offices, canteens and changing rooms. All other staff were advised not to report in for work. Most bizarre alert of the evening of chaos was that Whitehaven fire brigade had to try to respond to an automatic fire alarm at the isolated St Bees lighthouse. The alarm was false and the brigade got stuck trying to reach the lighthouse before being towed ignominiously back to the fire station by a JCB.

St Bees parish councillor, Harold Wilson who got off relatively lightly with just a six hour journey from Distington commented: “In those six hours we never saw a single county highways vehicle...and I heard they plan to lay off 22 staff.”

By Tuesday afternoon, police were operating a one way system at Howgate which started to mobilise traffic again on the A595.

Countering criticism a spokesman for the Cockermouth county highways department said: “We pre-salted all priority routes, including the A595 on Sunday evening.

“We had every piece of plant and machinery and all our men out on Monday on snow clearance.”

Providing emergency refuge accommodation at the height of the blizzard were both the Salvation Army Citadel and the Age Concern building. Over 100 people were put up at the Salvation Army with people from all over the North, Chester, Manchester and Newcastle huddling together. The magistrates court staff had to stay overnight as did many offices and businesses. The Expresso coffee bar in Whitehaven Market provided impromptu overnight emergency accommodation.

The massive traffic snarl-up on the Loop Road led to the Sunny Hill public house opening all hours and being swamped with benighted motorists. Some 100 children were stranded at a school in Egremont and 50 stranded at Mayfield School, Hensingham.

Coping better than some with the snow was Safeway supermarket worker, Allison Kitchin who skied down from Kells to get to work.

Emergency vehicles trying to reach people still trapped in their cars on Tuesday morning were locked in continuing traffic jams between Whitehaven and Workington.

An RAC patrol man, stuck with his break-down vehicle in the stationary queue on the New Road hill out of Whitehaven, said: “This is getting serious. There are old people out there who have been in their cars all night and could be suffering from hypothermia. We cannot get to them and some of them are likely to be in need of help and medical attention.”

Police allowed traffic to start moving again out of Whitehaven about 9am on Tuesday, a single-line route having been opened up to Workington through clusters of immobile vehicles and deep and drifting snow on both sides of the road. But within 30 minutes everything was at a standstill again, with police trying to create a way through for snow ploughs.

Meanwhile the area around Pelican Garage at the north end of Whitehaven Loop Road was a chaotic scene. From the garage in every direction vehicles could be seen halted bumper to bumper, with frustrated and anxious drivers climbing in and out.