Great Storm 1987

"I was awoken by the telephone ringing around 4 am.

The first thing I was aware of was the tremendous noise around me then the bedside light would not come on, I sat on the side of the bed and fumbled for the telephone, I put it to my ear still trying to fathom out the roaring coming from outside.

I walked to the window and could just make out someone's garden shed bouncing around in my garden, it was then that it hit me what was happening. I instructed my wife to get the kids up and seek safety in one room. I got dressed and left in my car for the Folkestone coastguard base.

Red flares

As I drove through Folkestone around debris and fallen, trees I could see red flares floating across Folkestone town. I radioed Dover coastguard and reported my sightings and they replied that the channel ferry 'Hengist' had broken her mooring and was being driven towards Copt Point. 'You will be going to this incident now and Deal will be attending the one at Dover harbour.'

I was a member of the Folkestone coastguard auxiliary team. By now all sorts of things were racing around in my mind.

After we had all mustered at our base we proceeded to the Warren. Our latest report was that the Hengist had been brought up on one of the concrete aprons there. These great expanses of concrete were laid to keep the Folkestone-Dover railway line slipping into the sea.

Amazing and frightening

On our arrival we were confronted with the most amazing and frightening sight I had ever witnessed. There was the M V Hengist driven right up against the concrete apron stuck fast on a finger of concrete that goes out towards the beach about 15 to 20 feet, about 10 feet wide and stepped down at the end to the beach. This had penetrated the hull going right through the beam of the boat, through the crew sleeping quarters below the car decks. This appears to have held the vessel fast. Had she grounded anywhere else I am sure she would have been lost.

We quickly and curiously assembled our rocket-launching gear to get our breaches buoy onto the boat to get the crew off to safety. The sight of water coming across the funnel and crashing down onto the concrete full of pebbles and shingle was something I will never forget.

I believe that the last time that this breaches buoy had been used in anger in Kent was in 1906 at Dungeness, but we would now see if all those hours we practised on it were going to pay off.

Broken arm

Several lines had been fired ashore by crew members on board the vessel but none had successfully come within our grasp. It was too dangerous to approach the vessel as one fireman found out when, against our advise, he tried to reach one of these lines hanging from the boat - on his third attempt he was washed back up the apron breaking his arm, the only casualty of the night.

We fired off our 44mm rocket with lines attached but the high winds just took it out and it never reached the boat. We fired another and the same thing happened. After some time passed the lines that had been fired from the ferry came within our reach and we were able to erect the breaches buoy to the vessel but, ironically, no one wanted to leave the vessel and it was decided that they were now in no danger.

The storm had begun to subside.

You would think that was enough for one day but mine was not over yet. When some of the coastguard stood down and returned to the station at Folkestone we found that the the coastguard station roof had blown off onto our cars parked below it. Luckily for me I was one of the last to muster at base, therefore my car was out on the road and missed most of it.

It did not end there for me. I am an emergency medical technician with Kent Ambulance Service based at Lydd ambulance station, and I now had to get home quick to check on the family, quickly shower and change into my ambulance uniform and try to negotiate the 18 miles to Lydd to pick up my shift at 0700hrs.

Pile of mobile homes

I will never know how I managed it. I drove over footpaths, up banks, round fallen trees - all sorts of obstacles but I got there. The night crew was still out so my colleague and I took the spare ambulance and we were immediately sent out to a residential/holiday home caravan park in Dymchurch and I was greeted by my next amazing sight - the biggest pile of mobile homes I have ever seen.

They were standing on end, on there roofs, laying on there sides. The only thing undamaged was the communal toilet shower block that was made of brick. This was full of all the residents mostly in there night clothes with various injuries and cuts and bruises. We spent several hours there tending to these people some of whom had to be taken to hospital - how on earth we got through from the marsh to William Harvey Hospital I do not know.

Our other vehicle still with the night crew had apparently sustained severe damage when a mobile home was lifted into the air by the wind and was driven straight through the side of the ambulance. Thankfully no one was hurt.

After this shift finished at 1400hrs, I made my way back home to Cheriton, changed back into my coastguard gear and returned to the Sealink ferry MV Hengist.

My 33 years in the ambulance service have given me many an event to deal with but I will always remember the great storm."