Fire crew to the rescue!

Monday 17 February 2020

Alderney's voluntary fire crew have been busy helping homeowners facing floods during the stormy weather, and rescuing a cat stuck in a gutter.

The animal was spotted in the guttering early this morning and was believed to have been stranded.

The Alderney Fire Brigade were called out at 0745 and using a short extension ladder, one crew member climbed up to the guttering and brought the cat safely down to ground. Crews were back on station and ready for action again by 08:20. 

Although the animal is safe, it is not yet home as no one seems to know who owns it.

In a statement, the Brigade said: "As crews could not find the owner and were unsure how long the cat had been stuck for, the decision was made to take the cat to the Alderney Animal Welfare for a check up and await collection by its owner."

Anyone who knows who owns the cat should contact the Alderney Animal Welfare Centre directly.

It's been a busy weekend for the volunteers who man the Alderney Fire Brigade as they were also called out yesterday to three reports of domestic flooding.

They got to the first house just before midday where they found more than 20mm of water flooding the lower rooms. The crew said they went in to the garden to discover that the soak away was overflowing and stopping any surface water draining. 

As they worked to set up a small salvage pump to begin emptying the soak away another call came in from someone else concerned that their property was also at risk of flooding.

Two of the crew were sent to check it out and assessed the situation before returning to the first incident, before a third call out came in reporting concerns of "significant flooding" at another property.

The crews weren't back to base until gone 17:00, and they were ready for further call outs again from 17:45. 

Pictured top: Main image and inset, both from Alderney Voluntary Fire Brigade Facebook.