Storm which changed the face of Orkney
By Lorraine Shearer
(From The Orcadian dated January 2, 2003)

Junction Road in Kirkwall flooded on January 31, 1953. At high tide it was said to be two feet deep at the Drill Hall and three feet at Kiln Corner.

The end of January will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the worst storms in Orkney history.

Some 2,300 people perished across Britain and the Netherlands during the so-called “great storm” of 1953.

And while, miraculously, no one was killed in Orkney, hurricane winds changed the face of the islands, ripping away chunks of land from around the coastline.

Floods and the highest windspeed ever recorded in Britain at the time – 125mph – reduced roads to rubble, demolished buildings and felled trees, causing up to £50,000 worth of damage in Kirkwall alone.

Only a year earlier, the 120 mph winds that struck Orkney shores on Tuesday, January 15, 1952, were initially estimated to have cost £1 million.

Families were made homeless, but again, miraculously, everyone escaped serious injury.

The chicken population of Orkney were not so lucky. Henhouses were overturned and smashed like matchboxes, and in some cases blown out to sea. Dead birds were strewn everywhere. In Rousay, they were picked up by the barrow-load.

Fisherman recalled hearing the squawking of hens under the cover of a henhouse floating out to sea. They lived, for a time anyway, while in the sanctuary of an air bubble.

But the morning of Saturday, January 31, 1953, was to give away nothing of the chaos that lay ahead, for it dawned crisp and calm.

National news reports said the hurricane led to widespread flooding on the North Sea coastline as a depression deepened, moving south-west between Norway and Scotland.

Strong north-westerly winds, in combination with low pressure and the tide, caused a great coastal surge – the tide was 2.5 metres above the normal level at King’s Lynn. More than 300 people drowned, and 2,500 square miles of land lay under water in Britain.

In the Netherlands nearly 2,000 people perished and over one sixth of the country was flooded.

Water, gas and oil pipes are exposed after the heavy seas and 100mph winds gouged away chunks of land from Shore Street on KirkwallÕs harbour front area. Local men are pictured surveying the worst of the damage. (Picture: S. Twatt, St Ola)

The Orcadian of Thursday, February 5, 1953, reported: “Gigantic seas in the harbour tore open the sea front and in little over three hours crumpled the sea wall and washed away the roadway along the entire length of the Ayre Road, and also in Shore Street, where water, gas and oil pipes were laid bare.”

The sea front damage alone, was estimated at more than £25,000, while Kirkwall’s water main was dislodged, cutting off the supply to the town and flooding Junction Road.

An eye witness at the time, Mr Peter Baikie, of Orkney Builders, saw the sea front wall disintegrate.

He was quoted in The Orcadian: “Three tremendous seas were responsible for the wall’s destruction.”

Mr Baikie saw the waves strike and the wall disappear in a smother of foam. When the water cleared he saw the wall had disappeared almost the whole way along.

It was the collapse of this wall that brought about the destruction in the vicinity of the Ayre Hotel and other buildings.

The sea wall also gave way at Shore Street and while the water washed forwards and backwards a huge hole was carved out of the road, exposing water pipes, electric light cables and gas mains.

The houses all along the sea front took a battering, but as soon as the weather eased, people were out barricading broken windows against the next high tide.

Many small boats sank or broke adrift; more than 100 trees were felled at the Berstane plantation; chickens perished as henhouses were overturned and phone lines were down.

The West Mainland Mart building in Stromness was reduced to “matchwood” and many people who dared to venture outside suffered minor injuries as the wind quite literally took the feet from under them.

Mrs Doris Cromarty, of Bayview in Toab, was 21 in 1953 and recalled watching a henhouse swinging from a telegraph pole in the parish.

During the storm of 1952, Mrs Cromarty was at Sebay Farm in Tankerness.

“Our front door blew open and if I wasn’t already awake, that certainly woke me up. It was about 3am-4am. My father dressed and went out down to the steading to make sure the beasts were all right. Things were flying about everywhere. Mary, my sister, and I went to the shore to pick up the hens. Some were dead, some were alive, we gathered what we could.

“The henhouses were smashed to bits and flying around. The big sheds at the side of the house, they had blown down. The garage, that our car was in, blew down as well. The roof and the bonnet was damaged. I can remember it vividly.”

She continued: “It was terrible in the morning, there was hay and straw flying about everywhere. It eased off by dinner time. We had to go down to the dairy at 5am to start milking. We held each other’s hands and went down. All the lights were out. It was pandemonium.”

A wind recording instrument at Costa Head in Evie in the West Mainland, belonging to the Electrical Research Association, recorded “a sustained wind – not a gust – of 125mph” during the storm of 1953.

For some time Orkney would reign as the windiest place in Britain. However, the latest figures show 172mph winds on March 20, 1986, on the summit of Cairngorm.

Worldwide, the highest recorded winds stand at 231mph on top of Mount Washington, New Hampshire in the United States, on April 12, 1934, although a massive 280mph windspeed, was picked up near the centre of a tornado at Wichita Falls in Texas on April 2, 1958.

With a morbid fascination, people flocked to Kirkwall from outer areas to catch a glimpse of the devastation. Motorists from the West Mainland had to be re-routed around the Peedie Sea to enter the town.

Shipping, air and bus services were brought to a standstill, while the steamer St Magnus which had been berthed in at Kirkwall pier had to take shelter in Inganess Bay until the next day.

The Dutch oil tanker Marcella broke loose from her moorings, crashing against the top of the West Pier, making a hole of 50ft.

The Dutch oil tanker Marcella broke loose from her moorings, crashing against the top of Kirkwall’s West Pier. This photo was taken on February 1, 1953, the day after the storm.

However, the picture earlier in the day painted a very different story as The Orcadian reported: “At 5 o’clock on Saturday morning a bright moon sailed through the gently moving clouds of a fine calm winter’s day. At Kirkwall harbour the sea lapped gently against the pier, the St Magnus had berthed after a very fine run north from Aberdeen.

“Everything seemed normal in a sleeping world and the only indication of the storm to come was a dropping glass – but there were few people in the islands awake to see that.”

The newspaper continued: “An hour later at 6am, the wind had got up a bit and was blowing at 20mph while the barometer remained steady until 6.30am when it began to rise and continued to rise rapidly all day with the wind.”

By 7am the wind was blowing from north-northwest at a steady 40mph, with occasional gusts of 52mph. Another hour later and some thought the worst was past when the wind dropped to around 33mph, but this was, quite literally, the calm before the storm, while it gathered strength for the full onslaught.

By 8.20am, it was averaging 51mph and gusting up to 67mph. As the morning continued the weather worsened, until it reached its peak at around 10.30am, according to the Grimsetter Airport Met Station, when the average speed was 80mph, with frequent gusts of up to 107mph – the highest the speed instruments could record.

The wind remained strong until the evening, but temperatures dropped from 41 degrees F to 33 degrees F with a combination of wind, sleet and snow showers.

Throughout the days to come, work began restoring the roads and it became obvious that the damage was not so bad generally, as that of the previous year.

The 1953 storm was the second time in a year that Orkney had been devastated by the power of the weather. Back in January, 1952, the hurricane was at its height between 4.30am and 7.30am when most of the damage was done.

Many people were wakened by the noise and likened it to a small earthquake.

When dawn broke, much of Orkney looked as though it had been hit by an air raid, with slates torn off, shattered windows, broken walls and chimney cans lying everywhere. Many wooden huts, which had been converted into homes were hardest hit, and, in many cases, flattened, rendering their occupants homeless.

Stromness suffered heavily, receiving the full brunt of the south westerlies. In the Stromness churchyard, 49 tombstones were knocked down and hundreds of trees at Binscarth in Finstown were felled.

The Front Road in St Margaret’s Hope did not escape without damage following the 1953 storm.

Farmers across the islands faced a battle to feed their cattle, as most haystacks had been blown away or damaged. In some cases, cattle were injured when their byres collapsed on top of them.

The late Dr William Emslie and his wife Grace lived at Skerryvore, 7 Victoria Street, in Kirkwall. Their daughter, Ruth Emslie, of Bosquoy Road in Kirkwall, was only eight when the walls of their house shook with the winds of 1952.

“My brother and I slept at the back of the house on the first floor, as did mum and dad. The garden in those days went right down to Junction Road. We felt the house juddering and woke up. The glass was actually bending inwards with the force of the wind. Mum came and told us to put the counterpanes over the beds in case the windows smashed.”

Ruth and her brother William tried going downstairs but were stopped by shards of glass on the floor.

“Dad was called to an emergency at the Balfour Hospital. He had to go down the garden to get to the garage. I remember he had to jump into the flowerbed because bowling up the garden path was a large sheet of corrugated iron.”

The next day, Ruth had to step over fallen trees lying on Broad Street and up the Strynd to get to school.

Mrs Barbara Shearer of Bridge Street Wynd in Kirkwall lived at Davie’s Brig, near Finstown when the 1952 storm struck. She, her husband Tommy and four sons, Pat, Ingram, Stewart and David, were all tucked up in bed.

“It was early morning when we were awakened about 4am. This thing like an express train went past the house. I remember Tommy seeing the glass in a corner window starting to bend. He took a piano, laid it on its side and wedged it with chairs underneath to stop the window from coming in. The henhouse was upside down and over the banks, but I don’t think think it killed any of the hens.”

She added: “I remember in a neighbouring field the shards of glass sticking out of the neeps.”

Stromness Town Council issued this message to the Scottish Secretary: “Storm damage situation desperate. Urgently requested top priority materials and feeding stuffs for farm stock. Financial assistance imperative for housing and farmers. Emergency measures necessary immediately to ensure earliest restoration of milk, egg and beef production.”

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