Twenty years since family swept away in South Uist storm tragedy

On the night of 11 January 2005, a family of five attempted to escape a violent storm battering their home on the island of South Uist.

Winds gusting to 124mph had coincided with a high tide, and a surging sea was threatening to overwhelm the MacPhersons’ house.

The conditions were so severe that wind and waves hurled sand and rocks against the outside walls.

Archie and Murdina MacPherson, their children Andrew, seven, and Hannah, five, along with Murdina’s father Calum Campbell set off in two cars.

They hoped to reach the safety of Archie’s parents’ home, just over a mile away, but they never made it; their cars were swept away.

Archie and Murdina had grown up in the Hebrides before moving away to the mainland for jobs.

Archie worked as a joiner in Glasgow and Murdina had been a personal assistant to the head of Gaelic at BBC Scotland.

They had returned home to the isles to raise their young family.

Archie took on work as a self-employed builder and Murdina was secretary at a local school.

Some of those closest to the family have spoken publicly for the first time about the tragedy in a new BBC Alba documentary, Eòrpa: After the Storm.

Murdina’s close friend Cirsty Macinnes said: “It’s been 20 years but I still find it hard to look at her house when I have to drive past it.

“The house is still there, but they’re not.”

South Uist is home to about 1,800 people and one of the southern isles in the 160-mile (257km) length of the Western Isles, a chain of islands off Scotland’s west coast.

On the west side of the Hebridean islands is the North Atlantic, with nothing but open ocean until North America.

Islanders are long accustomed to wild winter weather.

But the suddenness and severity of the 11 January storm shocked many of them.

The storm had started days earlier as a low depression hundreds of miles away off America’s east coast.

By the time it reached the Western Isles it had increased in intensity.

The atmospheric pressure alone raised the sea level by almost 70cm (27in).

The bad weather coincided with a high spring tide, further raising the height of the water.

The Western Isles were hit by strong winds and heavy, driving rain.

Waves overtopped sand dunes on the low-lying island of South Uist.

Causeways, which are crossings carrying roads over short sections of sea between islands, contributed to raising flood levels as the storm roared in.

Power went out across the islands and mobile phone reception was lost.

Archie’s father David MacPherson was working a shift at a Ministry of Defence missile range in West Gerinish, South Uist, unaware of the tragedy unfolding near his home.

He recalled how the lights went out in his building at 15:00.

An emergency generator kicked in but it ran out of fuel at 20:00.

He said: “There was a light at the emergency exit that lasted until midnight, but that went out too.

“I was in darkness. I’ll never forget it, how terrifying it was.

“And no idea what was happening a few miles down the road.

“A terrible night.”

Murdina’s brother Neil Campbell had planned to meet his sister and her family that evening.

He said: “I’d been away for Christmas and we were going to have dinner together.

“We had presents to give each other.”

But on his drive from the neighbouring island of Benbecula he was stopped by the storm and forced to turn back.

“The wind hit the car and seawater started gushing through in front of me,” he said.

“I just froze.”

Neil said his sister’s house was on the edge of an area of coastal meadow called machair next to the sea.

He said: “The storm surge had surrounded them.

“There was sand and rocks thrown up against the wall of the house.

“They must have been terrified.

“I think they just fled.”

The family’s cars are believed to have been caught up in the storm surge, which breached the coastline and caused extensive flooding.

The vehicles were later discovered to have been swept into an inland loch.

The bodies of Archie, 36, Murdina, 37, and Calum, 67, were found first before the children’s in the following days.

Neil said: “You’re waiting all day for something, and then they tell you they’ve found them.

“It’s a relief in one way. But at the same time, they’re telling you you’ve lost everyone.

“That’s what’s difficult to deal with. You never deal with it.”

Cirsty remembered the anger and grief she felt in the wake of the storm.

She said: “The priest at the time said they went to God together.

“I was so angry, I said they didn’t. I said what kind of god would do such a terrible thing to such good people?

“To children who were so lovely and innocent?”

She said Murdina had been a great friend to her and was funny, generous and strong.

Mourners travelled from across the isles to attend the funeral in St Mary’s Church at Griminish in Benbecula.

Five coffins were laid in a row before the congregation – the adults rested in three brown coffins and the children in coffins of brilliant white.

Large floral tributes spelling out each of their names were placed at the foot of the altar.

Three priests were joined by Archie’s uncle, The Reverend John Smith, for the service.

He told the packed church that life had been better because of the family’s existence.

There were prayers, readings, hymns and accordion playing.

Widower and former joiner Calum had been a piping instructor in local schools and a piper played as the coffins were carried from the church.

Mairi Macinnes was headteacher of Iochdar School, where Andrew and Hannah were pupils at the time, and where Murdina was a secretary.

She told the documentary how Murdina had spoken of the coming storm, but without any fear or expectation of the destruction it would bring.

Mairi said: “I remember well, on the afternoon beforehand when news came that there was really bad weather coming.

“I can still see Murdina standing there saying the school would be off, that there was a storm on the way.”