Snow storm survival guide: what to do if you're caught out by The Beast
When Dr Lisa Fenton fell through ice in rural Canada eight years ago, she was forced to rely on her expert survival knowledge to stay alive. Hauled from the freezing water by colleagues, she immediately undressed and found a spot to start a fire – something most of us would have little idea how to do.
Admittedly, the hundreds of drivers stranded in their cars on the M80 on Wednesday night were not in quite as perilous a situation. But Dr Fenton, who co-owns a bushcraft school in Cumbria and leads an Arctic-style expedition each winter, believes that even the most basic ‘keeping warm’ survival advice is very poorly understood in Britain, a country with little experience of extreme weather.
“Most of this stuff we assume is common sense, but if you’ve never had any reason to know it, there’s no reason why you should,” Dr Fenton says.
“We’re not used to extreme snow and cold in this country – we tend to have mild rain instead. In countries like Sweden and Scandinavia, people are much more aware of what they need to do, how to cope, how to dress, what to avoid. I think it’s much more within their culture of stock knowledge than it is within our’s.”
So, with Storm Emma set to meet The Beast in our skies, what survival knowledge should we all have at hand, just in case?
Clothing (it’s all about wool)
Dr Fenton, who also lectures in Outdoor Studies at the University of Cumbria, always takes spare wool clothing on any long winter journey, and she advises anybody driving this week to do the same. The survival expert leads groups of adults on winter expeditions to rural Canada and Maine, in the northeast US, each year, where temperatures can reach -30C. And she always tells her students to wear at least two or three wool layers.
“Wool makes a huge difference in keeping you warm,” she says. “The thing with wool is that it breathes – the last thing you want to do in a cold environment is sweat. If you start sweating then the water next to your body will get cold and damp, and will freeze on the inside of your clothes, and then you’re really in trouble. Bring woolly jumpers, woolly socks, woolly hats, and mittens.”
Sage advice – and you should take heed even if you don't plan to get in a car this evening. With the National Grid warning that, for the first time in a decade, gas supply is set to fall below demand, you'd be well advised to root out those cosy old merino wool jumpers before the night is upon us.
Snow is your friend
For the hundreds of drivers trapped on the motorway on Wednesday night, some of whom were there for up to 18 hours, it would have seemed tempting to wipe the thick layers of snow from their cars. Indeed, after hearing horror stories of drivers who become trapped in their cars after being buried by snow (as happened to 70 drivers in Cumbria in 2013), allowing snow to build on your bonnet would seem outright dangerous.
But Dr Fenton says that thin layers of snow can actually help to keep cars warm.
“Snow is very insulating, it keeps things warm. So you wouldn’t want to wipe all the snow off your car. Let it build. When we’re sleeping out in nature in very cold environments, and we’re not in tents, we’ll dig an igloo. Outside it might be -30C, but inside the igloo it will be 0C, which feels quite warm. But you need to have a hole somewhere otherwise you can give yourself an oxygen problem.”
In very serious situations Dr Fenton even advises digging into snow. “Mountaineers do it all the time – they’ll be much warmer in a snow hole than they would be in a tent.”
No man left behind
Lesley Forster, who was stranded on the M8 near Cumbernauld for 18 hours on Wednesday night, told the BBC that her experience was made more bearable by a “young lad” who “came out of his house with a sled filled with water and a few bits of food – all he had in the house – and handed it out. I am so grateful to him.”
Indeed, Dr Fenton says in her experience extreme cold “always brings out the best in people”, with her expeditions to Maine and Canada seeing her students club together wonderfully.
In a truly perilous weather situation, she warns, it is important to look out for each other. The risk of hypothermia is serious, she says, and tells us to follow the ‘umbles rule’: if our colleague “grumbles, stumbles, mumbles, and tumbles” there is a chance they could be developing hypothermia, and they should be watched more carefully.
