Incident 13. DSRT Tavistock was put on standby at 20:30 on Wednesday to assist with the evacuation of 1200 homes in the Southway area due to the discovery of a WW2 UXB. At 23:00 the team deployed to an RV near Crownhill in Plymouth and met with DSRT Plymouth, Coastguard Rescue, Fire and Police. Through the night we worked to visit every property within a 400m cordon around the UXB, checking properties were either vacated, or asking people to evacuate when found to be still in their homes. Every visit and occupants’ plan of leaving or staying was logged, and the data was assessed to make a plan for the following day. The team finished at 05:30 with all vehicles returned to base, and all members heading home to get as much sleep as possible before either work, or the expected follow up deployment on Thursday. We were recalled early on Thursday to continue the evacuation at 09:00, at a new RV at the TA centre in Derriford. Our team members joined multi-agency teams made up of Mountain Rescue, Coastguard, Fire and Police and set out to revisit properties in the 400m cordon to reduce the number of people still in the high risk area. All empty properties were double checked, the dangers presented by the work being carried out by EOD were explained to those who were choosing to remain at home, and where people wanted to leave but had no transport arrangements were made to transport them to a place of safety. Thursday’s pace was slow and thorough, with some emotional moments when residents realised the seriousness of the situation.
All MR teams were stood down at 20:30, following a lengthy deployment, especially for those who had also responded the night before.
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