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During Storm Bram, Andy Paterson, a football enthusiast from Houston, Renfrewshire, found himself trapped in significant traffic delays on the M74. His journey was intended to take him to a match between his hometown team, Queen of the South, and Dunfermline. However, severe weather caused the motorway near Abington to close for much of the evening, and Mr. Paterson reported witnessing at least ten overturned lorries littered across the road, describing the scene as reminiscent of a “zombie movie.”
Mr. Paterson, a semi-retired occupational health nurse who had finished his shift earlier that day, set off in windy conditions to attend the match and visit his sister with Christmas gifts. Stopping briefly at Cairn Lodge services, he only managed to travel a short distance before the traffic abruptly came to a halt. “It got quite dark and everybody’s turned off their engines because they were sitting there for two hours or so,” he recalled, with powerful gusts rocking vehicles, including a Tesco lorry near him. Emergency services were on the scene, but no injuries were reported.
By morning, police confirmed that the M74 had reopened following a recovery operation. Storm Bram brought gusts reaching 76mph in South Uist and similarly high winds in areas such as Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway. An amber weather warning was issued for the Western Isles, while the rest of southern Scotland remained under a yellow alert. Mr. Paterson noted that the conditions seemed worse than expected for just a yellow warning, expressing concern that the weather had been underestimated.
After learning the cup tie was postponed only minutes after kickoff and hearing reports of fallen trees, Mr. Paterson took a detour via minor roads to make his way home, arriving before he might have had he continued. Though he had to delay delivering Christmas presents to his sister, he plans to return for the rescheduled match, expecting to make the trip down to Dumfries again under better conditions. Reflecting on his experience, he said, “I kind of feel a wee bit lucky from that point of view, because I think it must have happened all quite quickly.
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