By Alexander Cruickshanks

University of the The West of Scotland’s campus teams have been praised for the work they did to keep Storm Eowyn’s power at bay.

Head of Campus Services, Elizabeth O’Reilly, told uwsnews she was proud of the way her team across Lanarkshire, Paisley and Ayr handled the worst storm the country has witnessed in decades.

Expressing her gratitude, Mrs O’Reilly said the work done by the team to keep the campuses and student halls safe started before the storm hit land as they prepared for the worst.

Damage across the campuses differed, with Lanarkshire getting off lightly, losing trim from the main front door as the services teams locked down as much as they could including sealing bins to prevent flying debris.

In Ayr, the story was a bit different, with the head explaining: “In Ayr it did do quite a bit of damage. There was a roof damage on Block One of residences Ayr. It was a large part of the roof that blew onto the ground. It looked like a big lamppost on the ground, but it was actually part of the roof.”

Sarah Cashman is a resident on the Ayr Campus and gave her account of events and said: “We were hanging out in the common room and the automatic doors wouldn’t close because of the wind. At one point the roof just kind of flew off and we didn’t know what to do.

‘Then they were like you have to stay inside, don’t go anywhere because they were trying figure out if anything else was going to fall off and everything was flying everywhere so it was kind of crazy.”

There was also some destruction caused on the Paisley campus, with Elizabeth O’Reilly adding: “Paisley is different beast to Ayr. Ayr has been custom built as one building as has Lanarkshire. Paisley has 24.

‘They’re all aging, all different ages, all different eras. In H Block, early on Friday you could see the roof had come off. But it wasn’t actually the roof it was a subsection on the roof made of glass.

‘That had blown of and taken some of the strips and cladding with it.”

Although the public were all advised to stay indoors, the UWS team were in the thick of it.

She said: “Our teams were on the ground. So, although the campuses were closed our security teams were there making sure what was happening, where there was debris etc.

‘Our guys were really good. The guys on the ground are there 24/7 in both Ayr and Paisley.

“I think the team handled it really well. There’s a reward or recognition that we will give to the team because they were hands on the ground, they were keeping us fully informed.”