Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991 TAG: 9102090018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
Six inches of snow fell in London, where police warned people to stay home and thousands of commuters abandoned attempts to get to work after British Rail canceled trains and the London Underground subway trains operated erratically.
Some financial markets closed early so that the traders who did make it to work would have extra time for the trip home.
British Rail said the doors on some commuter trains were frozen shut. London's Waterloo and Euston stations, gateways respectively to the south and to the west coast main line, were closed.
"They manage to run services all through the winter in Germany and Austria, but when it snows here it's chaos," said Anne Roberts, a tax adviser who was waiting impatiently for a train in Surbiton, 17 miles south of London.
"I have just walked 45 minutes through the snow, and now there are no trains," added Gill Montgomery, a London commuter.
Homeowners unaccustomed to snow drifts struggled to clear sidewalks and driveways with brooms and garden tools. A woman in St. Albans, 20 miles north of London, painstakingly cleared her sidewalk with a small scoop used to clean fireplace ashes.
Firefighters were called out for hundreds of burst pipes as temperatures fell as low as 12 degrees at Bournemouth overnight. In many British homes, drain pipes run directly out through exterior walls, where they are unprotected against the cold.
Two people were hospitalized with shock after a boiler explosion in an apartment in Hayling Island, Hampshire. Firefighters attributed the boiler failure to cold weather.
The Automobile Association Roadwatch reported rescue calls were three times the normal level. Police said the fast lane of the M25, the six-lane freeway circling London, was blocked in places by abandoned cars.
In Wales, police ordered all cars except four-wheel drive vehicles off the road as snow drifted up to 7 feet deep.
Snow plows worked around the clock at London's Heathrow Airport, one of the world's busiest. The airport reported 23 departures and 20 arrivals were canceled.
by CNB