The only place I would ever expect an avalanche in the UK would be in the mountains of Wales or Scotland. But to hear of this tragic avalanche in Sussex was as strange as it was tragic
I must say a word for those victims of the 1721 Great Tsunami here in Liverpool where my next door neighbour but one pulled the plug far too soon causing multiple fatalities and even one deflation too, they all display yellow rubber 🦆 ducks to this day on November 4th.🙏🦆
I was snow boarding in France a decade ago, and was hit by a Avalanche I barely survived. Only reason I did was bc there was a Shed next to me that absorbed some of the impact. I was stuck face down/feet up buried to the point I could not move. I honestly thought I was going to die bc it was SUPER hard to breath bc I had numerous pounds of pressure pushed up against me. Thankfully some dude saw it hit me from a distance and risked his own life to dig me out. Not 5 mins later after he got me another one hit! It's wild how dangerous and powerful these can be!
I've seen a small avalanche from a distance when I used to go boarding in France, but thank god, never affected by it. I'm glad you survived! It doesn't take much when skiing or boarding to turn fun into failure!
Talk about a great story to tell your kids and grandkids! "Both of us wouldn't be here today if your ol' pappy hadn't gotten out of that avalanche. Come sit on pappy's lap and I'll tell you all about it. It was the year 2013..."
& this is reason #297 why i stay in the house. Might get sucked up by a tornado or freak earthquake but at least I can say I won’t get taken out by an avalanche.
@@incredibleedibledez I know this is true in the overwhelming majority of cases, but it's funny how this is posted on a video about people being buried in an avalanche exactly because they refused to leave their houses
The mother who rushed back was in a terrible position. Whatever she did at that point, she would come out badly. If she hesitated a bit more and didn't go in for her kids, I can't even imagine the survivors' guilt she would've experienced. Never knowing if she could've been fast enough to bring her children out. Not that dying is much better, but not sure I could live with such doubts on my mind.
@@victorvale1015 Nope. No, you are not. My first thought was, "So, you saved yourself, then had to go back, probably because someone asked you where the children were and you were forced to admit you'd abandoned them, saving yourself and leaving them to their fate?" If she'd just gathered them and taken them with her to begin with, they'd likely all have lived. Tragic.
Since the paper speaks of ”her other children” it sounds like she didn’t run away by herself, but with some of her children. Not quite sure why she felt that they couldn’t all flee together, though. Maybe the older children didn’t want to follow/stayed with their dad and, after having put the youngest to safety, the mum ran back to convince the others to flee, too?
@@Cecily-Pimprenelle Likely the youngest was young and small enough to carry and so it was a case of "I'll get this one to safety and then put my self at risk to try to force them to leave"
2:28 Voice says: "Mountaineers are at pains to give them a wide berth, ensuring that they do not venture out on top of them or walk close by underneath." Image shows: a mountaineer happily posing halfway on top of a cornice. LOL You do you, guy in the yellow jacket!
For those who wonder why these folks didn't leave their homes, that maybe because shelter was offered in the workhouse. As stated, these were unheated. They were also, essentially, a prison for the poor. There was a great deal of shame attached to being in a workhouse, families were usually seperated, and the conditions were atrocious, with overcrowding, malnutrition, diseases, and long, hard work. Often the only way out was death.
While that is true, it's still dumb to refuse temporary shelter, even if the only option is a cold place full of poor and broken people, when there's a very clear threat of death literally hanging above them. I don't particularly fancy hanging out in a prison even for a short period of time, but if the other option is being crushed by an avalanche of snow, ice and mud, I know what I'd choose.
@Alice While I agree, they probably didn't believe it as dangerous as purported, after all, not happened before, not happened since, and most people probably didn't realise snow could be heavy enough to destroy houses.
You might want to consider the 'Frank Slide' in Alberta Canada for a story. It is the deadliest rockslide in Canadian history. Over 75 people died in the space of a few minutes. The town of Frank was destroyed.
As someone from Alberta, I second this! My grandpa (who recently passed) actually grew up just down the road from Frank and frequently played in/around the buried area as a child in the 1930s/40s. Creepy stuff.
I "third" this! I'm not Canadian, but I used to live in Montana and I spent a lot of time in that part of Alberta, and that slide never stopped being shocking to see, to this day
I agree. Came across the Frank slide travelling through crowsnest past years ago. Couldnt figure out where all the boulders came from, until I pulled over and read the signs. The stories of the babies that survived, and the horse found a month later in the mine are truly amazing
I was today years old, growing up my entire life in the UK, somewhat near Sussex, when I learned the UK even had a single avalanche, yet alone one as devastating as this. Add on: one thing i was taught when i showed mere interest in snowboarding when younger - if you ever find yourself buried by an avalanche, spit. The saliva will travel downwards, pulled by gravity; dig the opposite way - up. It's likely an avalanche will have turned you over, and you likely will not know which way is up and which way is deeper into the snow. If you have the ability to do this under the pressure of the snow, it can be life saving.
I was already going to say that Mr. Bridgman maybe ranked among the unluckiest survivors on this channel so far just with 06:35, but then we got to the list of deaths at the end. If the two people who shared his surname and perished were (closely) related to him, then that rather seals it. Poor guy couldn't catch a break, especially if the reason he didn't want to leave beforehand was due to his possible 11-year old daughter who just ended up dying as the youngest fatality.
I honestly find it hard to fault the residents for not wanting to leave. With the weather being what it was and the fact that the alternative was undoubtedly an unpleasant place to be, I would probably have done the same. A tragic mistake perhaps only in hindsight.
@@lyedavide yes and considering the location a fear for avalanches probably did not exist in the common conscious so why would they take such drastic action, pretty unfortunate
I also was thinking that if the residents of Boulder Row were already poor, they probably had a terrible fear of the work house because they spent their whole lives teetering on that edge between poverty and destitution. The workhouse had to be a source of _incredible_ fear and anxiety. Some of them might’ve even been in the workhouse before and might’ve had trauma or PTSD compounding their fear of the workhouse. You’d have to imagine that the statement “I’d sooner lie in my grave than go back to the workhouse” (or something with similar sentiment) was probably said. It couldn’t have been an easy decision.
@@rodo1252 They had just witnessed a building being _destroyed_ by the very same cornice the previous day, so of course they knew what to expect! Do you think they were that stupid? Or perhaps they were, risking almost certain death by staying...
The one thing I always find interesting about these stories from old tragedies is the witness accounts. They speak of it in such an ominously poetic way. Today people definitely don't talk like that anymore.
Those are usually from the news paper, and the reporter is t actually quoting the person. Basically, they take witness accounts and write it down in a way that's a lot better for the reader.
"and like, and like, I was like what the 4*ck. And we were like, so I was like, and then we, so I was like go, go, go, and then we like. And then I said it was like really 4*cked up." Yup, that pretty much sums up today's witness accounts
Stories like this are why I love your channel. I keep up with many history, disaster, forgotten events, etc channels, and I've never heard of this event.
This story makes me think that Susan Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising, must have been familiar with these events. That book involves a heavy snowstorm over Christmas that is integral to the events of the book. I feel particularly for Robert Hyam. He was trying so hard, but people just wouldn't listen.
Thing about cornices is even small ones can punch through to a weak layer of snow and trigger a much bigger avalanche than you would expect. They are one of the worst "Avalanche Problems" imo because there's really no way to mitigate it at all, you just have to avoid it. Cornices have forced more than a few ski tours to end much soon than than I expected
I’ve been watching your videos for a couple of years now and I have to tell you that they are head and shoulders above most disaster docs I’ve seen on YT. Absolutely no reduction in quality. Thank you! 😊
It’s crazy. I live in the United States, and I never really think of the UK as having weather like we do. I always kind of think of it as being just rainy and foggy and on the cool side year round. I would’ve never thought an avalanche would’ve taken place there. I enjoy this video and rest in peace to those poor people that lost their lives…
Your assumption is typical of so many Americans of our English weather and is far from reality I'm affraid. Yes we do have rain and fog certain times of the year but we do manage to have warm Springs and hot summers. Come over and give us a try!
@@madtrucker0983 Steam ship? have you gone barmy! How do you propose we power a ship with steam? No, good sir, one takes to water with nary more than sail!
It's fun to see your home town featured in a video like this. The Anne of Cleves house museum has some clothes from the survivors who were pulled from the snow too
I'd heard of avalanches occurring in Scotland, but never in England. This was quite a revelation for me. Thank you FH for presenting yet another episode from history of which I was totally unaware. Your videos are most enlightening!
This story absolutely breaks my heart. I had never heard about it before, and I can't imagine the horror that the victims experienced. Thank you for making this video.
Excellent video, never heard of this tragedy before. It's understandable that the residents didn't want to leave their homes. The alternative offered was the workhouse, which were dreadful places. Basically they were prisons for the poor. Imagine being told to leave your home and swap it for a working prison, where you would be separated from the rest of your family, probably for the rest of your life. Small wonder the residents preferred to take their chances.
The most horrible thing about avalanches is that once the snow comes to rest, it typically packs very firmly. People buried in that have little chance of extricating themselves, or beating asphyxiation, unless they are lucky enough to be quite near the surface.
Weird coincidence, I was just reading about this in a book all about British weather related disasters! It’s called “The story of the British and their weather” by Patrick Nobbs. Worth checking out.
I visited The Snowdrop Inn a few years back, and was told the tale of how it got it's name within minutes of entering the pub. Walking from the pub to the centre of town, I was told again by two separate strangers that I chatted to (I was asking for directions if I remember), so I heard the tale two and a half times (the third time the person said to me 'do you know how the Snowdrop Inn got its name?' and I was able to show that I did, so that doesn't really count as a whole extra time...)
@@DD-qq8sn Odd little place, looking at Google Maps. Appears to only be a restaurant/pub now, but has a mechanized alligator, fish and anchor theme decor on the outside. Most reviews seem positive and they are said to be dog friendly too.
Amazing, I have been a huge fan of your channel, watched every video, and showed multiple people your account and now you’re doing a documentary on the town I called home for the first 28 years of my life! How strange. Keep up the amazing work!
It's easy to conclude that, but also, part of surviving life is deciding to ignore a lot of potential dangers out of the view that the likelihood of them causing harm is less than the likelihood of the reaction causing harm. In this case, it was a bad call, but how many other similar calls are good? Deciding to change your general daily life to do X or to avoid Y is a calculation that we use many shortcut heuristics for, and *most* of the time it's correct to not shift your behavior. Getting better heuristics about *when* to shift behavior, that's crucial. Though also, when it's a freak occurrence like this, the heuristics don't help much. Imagine trying to figure out the danger of a volcano eruption from a place that has never, in thousands of years, dealt with a volcano. Heck, before Mt. St. Helens blew, a lot of people thought it couldn't possibly be all that destructive....
These were very poor people, being "offered" shelter in the workhouse, which was home to the only people in town poorer than them, and known for being a cold, brutal place to be. Some probably thought it was a trick to take their homes. Most were likely afraid that if they went in, they wouldn't come out, avalanche or no. They chose a short term gamble (the possibility of an avalanche) over a long term risk (life in the workhouse). Whether or not they understood the immediate danger really doesn't matter. For many, a possible quick death in snow would sound less unpleasant than a probable long death in the workhouse.
What a beautiful town! This is event is truly harrowing, and I can't imagine how terrifying such an unexpected event would be. One of those occurrences that, unless you've seen it before, you wouldn't believe it could happen. I would love to see Lewes in person some day.
Future video suggestion. You should do a documentary on the 3 mile island disaster. It happened in the 1970’s here in Pennsylvania. The events took place when a valve leak in a nuclear reactor caused radioactive gases to leak. I just learned about it the other day and have been completely infatuated by this accident. Would love if you would cover it!
When I visited Lewes the pub was called "The Drop", and it had informative signs up about why it was called that. I was surprised to learn about the snow drop - it was hard to imagine among the low rolling green hills
I really love this channel and the content is never repetitive as you see on other channels so many of these disasters i have never heard anywhere else before you always learn about here so for that I'm very grateful
I'm surprised we have such detailed accounts of what happened. When I saw the date of the incident, I expected to see more approximations for things like deaths, injuries, and the like. Instead, you had everything, right down to the time the cornice started to break.
I used to live in lewes, and I worked in the snow drop pub for a time. I never knew it was named that because of this! I'm not saying ghosts, but when closing up alone, i never felt alone! There was always a feeling someone was with you, but in a reassuring way.
I could imagine an avalanche on Snowdonia or Ben Nevis or even the hills of Yorkshire and above. But never in the middle of smalltown southern England. Thank you for educating us on an interesting piece of history that I previously was ignorant of. I love your channel for unknowns like this.
Although the channel title might be at first interpreted otherwise, I appreciate the sensitivity and circumspection with which you handle the telling of these tragic stories. Well done 👍
My parents live near Lewes so I know it well. Amazing world famous bonfire night, and the Cliff hill fireworks display is brilliant because the bangs bounce of off the cliff.
Such a beautiful place, I've been there a few times. An avalanche in Lewes is the last thing I could imagine! btw Virginia Woolf lived nearby and is buried in the garden of her Monk's House
I've never seen snow in my life and I can't imagine what living through a winter like that would have been like. It's winter here in Melbourne, 12°C, and I was complaining because there's a really cold wind today (although it's sunny).. I think I'll shut up! How did most people heat their homes back then? Any wood outside would be wet and doesn't sound like you could transport much...
I used to drink at the "Snowdrop Inn", and its how I first became aquainted with this freak of nature. Lewes has strange geography, where the river Ouse carves a gap through the surrounding chalk downland. Thats why this inland town has its very own "white cliffs" which plunge several hundred feet straight down to river level, and creates a uniquely mountainous environment in the heart of southern England. Lewes was also the scene of other horrors- the Protestant bonfires of 1556-7 saw a total of 17 men burned alive at the stake because of their religious beliefs. To this day they are commemorated every November 5th in the bonfire procession through the town, a ceremony which predates, but ties in with, Guy Fawkes night. It is a pretty unique event.
Great work as always. Still hoping you might do a video on the Wellington Avalanche, the deadliest one in the United States. It knocked two stranded trains, a passenger train and mail train, off a mountainside into the valley below. Notable because of the efforts of the railroad company to clear the snow and get the trains out prior and the company manager on the scene took full responsibility for not getting them out in time.
Reminds me of the great flood of 1998, Del Rio, Texas. Tropical Storm Charlie moved up the Rio Grande and sat on the town for three days. The old district of the town was washed away. A local dam broke. Around twenty people died. Incidentally my family had left Del Rio about two weeks prior because my grandfather passed away. So it spared our family. When we returned home, the schools reopened. My school had this brown line about a foot or so off the floor going through the school's main building. I asked a friend what that line is. He said, "That's how high the flood got." We were lucky.
I’ve heard of avalanches occurring all the time in Switzerland. In fact, yodeling was a form of communication before radios and phones were invented, shouting could potentially trigger avalanches but yodeling was not as big of a risk. Alpine horns would set off smaller “controlled avalanches”, to prevent build up of snow and such for larger avalanches. Cuckoo clocks were invented because clocks that chimed would even be an avalanche hazard. My parents told me and my siblings this, they learned this when my dad was stationed in Europe as an army officer after his tour in Vietnam.
Its nice to see a local area of Sussex featured I am 8 miles from Lewes and vaguely knew of this tragedy but not well though have drank in the Snowdrop Inn. Cheers for sharing.
I live very close to Lewes and i was not even aware that this ever happened. Ive walked all over the South Downs and would never have believed it was the location of a deadly avalanche......CRAZY!!
Not only will the Workhouse as a shelter have been physically unappealing but it's very name would have sent shudders through locals, such was the horror and stigma of ending up in one. My grandparents town had a council run carehome -a nice place, recently modernised BUT the building itself, though "light and airy" was a few generations earlier the town Workhouse. And although it had closed by the time my grandparent's generation were growing up that is what they knew that building and location as, from THEIR parents and grandparents. And they knew the building as a place of shame, a place no one would ever want to end up. So no matter how nice the modernised building was when they were the old people needing care, to them it still had that shadow over it and they didn't like even visiting there, let alone being cared for in there. That stigma has long gone now, died out with the last generation who knew people who spokeof those places in hushed tones because they had seen them in operation...
Wow! I live about 5 miles from Lewes in Brighton and have never heard of this. It's a great little town, good job the avalanche didn't happen in recent times, the damage to the artisan bread and new age crystal stores would be devastating.
It's so bizarre hearing how close this is to me. When I clicked the video, I expected it to be over the sea in a different European country... But to hear it was less than an hour's drive away in a non-mountainous area of flatland like my home... It's just surreal. I have never heard of anything like this here.
I used to walk along that area when I grew up in Lewes in the 90’s to get to the Fish and Chippy for lunch. I remember being told about the avalanche and it was hard to believe as a kid. Sounded so made up especially since we very rarely got snow and when we did is was so light.
All winter here in the rockies there are the sounds of distant explosions. It's the parks people shooting grenades at the cornices to force avalanches while they're still small, so they can't hurt anyone when they get big later
How scary! May the victims rest in peace. I have a suggestion for a future episode: The Courrieres Mine Disaster. To this day it is Europe's deadliest mining accident, killing 1,099 miners.
The Oso landslide in Washington State would make for an interesting video, and I don't think it has been covered much. The scale of the actual landslide is shocking. It sadly killed 43 people, destroyed a bunch of homes, blocked a river causing flooding, and took out a large section of a highway.
Just looked up the band that does the theme music for this channel. They make my entire body fall asleep. I dropped everything I picked up the entire time.
If you want another avalanche to do a video on, you should look into the Wellington train disaster in Washington State. Deadliest avalanche in US history.
Love your videos! Really interesting stuff... Have you ever heard of the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster from Dundee? Its an interesting story, and the stumps of the old bridge can still be seen in the water to this day...
Just this winter, an entire farmhouse and barn was thrown into the ocean by an avalanche here in Tromsø. Never in recorded history has there been an avalanche in that area. Similar thing happened in Longyearbyen a few years ago.
Dude you KNOW a narrator is phenomenal when the I'm having a physiological meltdown from Agoraphobia from being homeless... And I hear a familiar voice and suddenly feel like I've entered a dark cozy cave. Solace.
@@adrienneczerni6516 I do get social security disability but it all goes straight to my storage unit my auto insurance and gasoline so that I'm able to move from parking lot to parking lot and not get towed for loitering.
Wait, that one? I thought this was about an avalanche on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, huh... Though yeah, the South Downs are more dangerous than people think. Rolling hills are not to be taken lightly, at all
If the snow that buried parts of California this year happened in Lewes, they could definitely have another avalanche. But in modern times, one would assume there are better alternatives than a workhouse for residents needing to evacuate. Plus there are techniques to mitigate the avalanche danger. Now California is facing the problem of all that snow melting.
Lewes is 10 miles away from me, about a 2 hour drive (over dramatising a little there due to lack of dual carriageway) and doesn't surprise me, it's literally next to a giant hill, in a ditch.
The only place I would ever expect an avalanche in the UK would be in the mountains of Wales or Scotland. But to hear of this tragic avalanche in Sussex was as strange as it was tragic
I must say a word for those victims of the 1721 Great Tsunami here in Liverpool where my next door neighbour but one pulled the plug far too soon causing multiple fatalities and even one deflation too, they all display yellow rubber 🦆 ducks to this day on November 4th.🙏🦆
There is occassional risk in Cumbria, but it is extremely rare.
Avalanches can occur whenever theres a large amount of snow
I was snow boarding in France a decade ago, and was hit by a Avalanche I barely survived. Only reason I did was bc there was a Shed next to me that absorbed some of the impact. I was stuck face down/feet up buried to the point I could not move. I honestly thought I was going to die bc it was SUPER hard to breath bc I had numerous pounds of pressure pushed up against me. Thankfully some dude saw it hit me from a distance and risked his own life to dig me out. Not 5 mins later after he got me another one hit! It's wild how dangerous and powerful these can be!
Great story man
I've seen a small avalanche from a distance when I used to go boarding in France, but thank god, never affected by it. I'm glad you survived! It doesn't take much when skiing or boarding to turn fun into failure!
Talk about a great story to tell your kids and grandkids!
"Both of us wouldn't be here today if your ol' pappy hadn't gotten out of that avalanche. Come sit on pappy's lap and I'll tell you all about it. It was the year 2013..."
& this is reason #297 why i stay in the house. Might get sucked up by a tornado or freak earthquake but at least I can say I won’t get taken out by an avalanche.
@@incredibleedibledez I know this is true in the overwhelming majority of cases, but it's funny how this is posted on a video about people being buried in an avalanche exactly because they refused to leave their houses
The mother who rushed back was in a terrible position. Whatever she did at that point, she would come out badly. If she hesitated a bit more and didn't go in for her kids, I can't even imagine the survivors' guilt she would've experienced. Never knowing if she could've been fast enough to bring her children out. Not that dying is much better, but not sure I could live with such doubts on my mind.
Ok but am I the only one wondering what the plan was when she evacuated WITHOUT HER CHILDREN 😂
@@victorvale1015
Nope. No, you are not. My first thought was, "So, you saved yourself, then had to go back, probably because someone asked you where the children were and you were forced to admit you'd abandoned them, saving yourself and leaving them to their fate?" If she'd just gathered them and taken them with her to begin with, they'd likely all have lived. Tragic.
Since the paper speaks of ”her other children” it sounds like she didn’t run away by herself, but with some of her children. Not quite sure why she felt that they couldn’t all flee together, though. Maybe the older children didn’t want to follow/stayed with their dad and, after having put the youngest to safety, the mum ran back to convince the others to flee, too?
@@Cecily-Pimprenelle Likely the youngest was young and small enough to carry and so it was a case of "I'll get this one to safety and then put my self at risk to try to force them to leave"
@@richardhobbs7360 yeah, also it is never mentioned how many kids she had, she provably grabbed the ones she had at hand and returned for the rest.
2:28 Voice says: "Mountaineers are at pains to give them a wide berth, ensuring that they do not venture out on top of them or walk close by underneath." Image shows: a mountaineer happily posing halfway on top of a cornice. LOL
You do you, guy in the yellow jacket!
I suspect he is actually on hard ground at the hill-top rather than part of an overhang.
@@nlwilson4892 I really hope you are right! XD
if you look at the photo i think he’s on terra firma ( ok a lil bit of snow on top of it)
I was hit by a wave of nausea. That’s insane!
For those who wonder why these folks didn't leave their homes, that maybe because shelter was offered in the workhouse. As stated, these were unheated. They were also, essentially, a prison for the poor. There was a great deal of shame attached to being in a workhouse, families were usually seperated, and the conditions were atrocious, with overcrowding, malnutrition, diseases, and long, hard work. Often the only way out was death.
While that is true, it's still dumb to refuse temporary shelter, even if the only option is a cold place full of poor and broken people, when there's a very clear threat of death literally hanging above them. I don't particularly fancy hanging out in a prison even for a short period of time, but if the other option is being crushed by an avalanche of snow, ice and mud, I know what I'd choose.
@Alice While I agree, they probably didn't believe it as dangerous as purported, after all, not happened before, not happened since, and most people probably didn't realise snow could be heavy enough to destroy houses.
I wonder if they were worried they wouldn’t be let out again if they went in.
@Elizabeth Bell A definate possibility. I do wonder if shelter had been offered in a church instead, would they have left their homes?
Excellent points.
You might want to consider the 'Frank Slide' in Alberta Canada for a story. It is the deadliest rockslide in Canadian history. Over 75 people died in the space of a few minutes. The town of Frank was destroyed.
As someone from Alberta, I second this! My grandpa (who recently passed) actually grew up just down the road from Frank and frequently played in/around the buried area as a child in the 1930s/40s. Creepy stuff.
I "third" this! I'm not Canadian, but I used to live in Montana and I spent a lot of time in that part of Alberta, and that slide never stopped being shocking to see, to this day
Yeah I witnessed Frank slide from his bar stool too. Pretty unfortunate 😢
I agree. Came across the Frank slide travelling through crowsnest past years ago. Couldnt figure out where all the boulders came from, until I pulled over and read the signs. The stories of the babies that survived, and the horse found a month later in the mine are truly amazing
Or the fate of Quebec town St Jean Vianney which vanished in a liquifaction.
I was today years old, growing up my entire life in the UK, somewhat near Sussex, when I learned the UK even had a single avalanche, yet alone one as devastating as this.
Add on: one thing i was taught when i showed mere interest in snowboarding when younger - if you ever find yourself buried by an avalanche, spit. The saliva will travel downwards, pulled by gravity; dig the opposite way - up. It's likely an avalanche will have turned you over, and you likely will not know which way is up and which way is deeper into the snow. If you have the ability to do this under the pressure of the snow, it can be life saving.
That is a fantastic tip, thank you
I was already going to say that Mr. Bridgman maybe ranked among the unluckiest survivors on this channel so far just with 06:35, but then we got to the list of deaths at the end. If the two people who shared his surname and perished were (closely) related to him, then that rather seals it. Poor guy couldn't catch a break, especially if the reason he didn't want to leave beforehand was due to his possible 11-year old daughter who just ended up dying as the youngest fatality.
I honestly find it hard to fault the residents for not wanting to leave. With the weather being what it was and the fact that the alternative was undoubtedly an unpleasant place to be, I would probably have done the same. A tragic mistake perhaps only in hindsight.
@@lyedavide yes and considering the location a fear for avalanches probably did not exist in the common conscious so why would they take such drastic action, pretty unfortunate
I also was thinking that if the residents of Boulder Row were already poor, they probably had a terrible fear of the work house because they spent their whole lives teetering on that edge between poverty and destitution.
The workhouse had to be a source of _incredible_ fear and anxiety.
Some of them might’ve even been in the workhouse before and might’ve had trauma or PTSD compounding their fear of the workhouse.
You’d have to imagine that the statement “I’d sooner lie in my grave than go back to the workhouse” (or something with similar sentiment) was probably said.
It couldn’t have been an easy decision.
Up there with the 'survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki guy', whom FH did a Short on
@@rodo1252 They had just witnessed a building being _destroyed_ by the very same cornice the previous day, so of course they knew what to expect! Do you think they were that stupid? Or perhaps they were, risking almost certain death by staying...
The one thing I always find interesting about these stories from old tragedies is the witness accounts. They speak of it in such an ominously poetic way. Today people definitely don't talk like that anymore.
Those are usually from the news paper, and the reporter is t actually quoting the person. Basically, they take witness accounts and write it down in a way that's a lot better for the reader.
@@janitorizamped Even then, "journalists" of today can't freaking write on the same level
@@nzkshatriya6298 true
"and like, and like, I was like what the 4*ck. And we were like, so I was like, and then we, so I was like go, go, go, and then we like. And then I said it was like really 4*cked up."
Yup, that pretty much sums up today's witness accounts
language has changed in the years since this happened .
Stories like this are why I love your channel. I keep up with many history, disaster, forgotten events, etc channels, and I've never heard of this event.
This story makes me think that Susan Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising, must have been familiar with these events. That book involves a heavy snowstorm over Christmas that is integral to the events of the book.
I feel particularly for Robert Hyam. He was trying so hard, but people just wouldn't listen.
I have always lived near lewes and never ever knew about this. Didn’t realise that is why The Snow Drop is called that. Thank you for this video.
Thing about cornices is even small ones can punch through to a weak layer of snow and trigger a much bigger avalanche than you would expect.
They are one of the worst "Avalanche Problems" imo because there's really no way to mitigate it at all, you just have to avoid it. Cornices have forced more than a few ski tours to end much soon than than I expected
I’ve been watching your videos for a couple of years now and I have to tell you that they are head and shoulders above most disaster docs I’ve seen on YT. Absolutely no reduction in quality. Thank you! 😊
i can honestly say, having seen all of your videos, ive never been bored or disappointed with a single one.. Bravo!
It’s crazy. I live in the United States, and I never really think of the UK as having weather like we do. I always kind of think of it as being just rainy and foggy and on the cool side year round. I would’ve never thought an avalanche would’ve taken place there. I enjoy this video and rest in peace to those poor people that lost their lives…
Your assumption is typical of so many Americans of our English weather and is far from reality I'm affraid. Yes we do have rain and fog certain times of the year but we do manage to have warm Springs and hot summers. Come over and give us a try!
Ya like Mary Poppins or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
@@nickhale2900 As soon as I can afford a steam ship ticket I will.
@@nickhale2900 We also have heavy New York style winters with blizzards often lasting weeks, moreso in the past.
@@madtrucker0983 Steam ship? have you gone barmy! How do you propose we power a ship with steam? No, good sir, one takes to water with nary more than sail!
It's fun to see your home town featured in a video like this. The Anne of Cleves house museum has some clothes from the survivors who were pulled from the snow too
I'd heard of avalanches occurring in Scotland, but never in England. This was quite a revelation for me. Thank you FH for presenting yet another episode from history of which I was totally unaware. Your videos are most enlightening!
Wake-up from a nightmare. Listen to a real life nightmare. Thank-you for the work you do and sharing with us.
Definitely one of my favorite channels on here. Awesome work as always mate!
So sad the guy going door to door. He must have seen the faces that went back inside in his nightmares. He tried!
This story absolutely breaks my heart. I had never heard about it before, and I can't imagine the horror that the victims experienced. Thank you for making this video.
I enjoyed the reading of the newspaper clippings in this one. It really helped put me in the time period of the incident.
Excellent video, never heard of this tragedy before.
It's understandable that the residents didn't want to leave their homes. The alternative offered was the workhouse, which were dreadful places. Basically they were prisons for the poor. Imagine being told to leave your home and swap it for a working prison, where you would be separated from the rest of your family, probably for the rest of your life. Small wonder the residents preferred to take their chances.
The most horrible thing about avalanches is that once the snow comes to rest, it typically packs very firmly. People buried in that have little chance of extricating themselves, or beating asphyxiation, unless they are lucky enough to be quite near the surface.
That has to be one of the worst ways to go out
Weird coincidence, I was just reading about this in a book all about British weather related disasters! It’s called “The story of the British and their weather” by Patrick Nobbs. Worth checking out.
Imagine how I feel; I work for Lewes council!
Emma was there that fateful morning. She's older than you think
@@MonTube2006 I've...always been here.
Well, that title is straight to the point lol.
Cool! Thanks for the rec!
This is so strange. I have visited Lewes a number of times, would never have imagined there could be an avalanche there.
I visited The Snowdrop Inn a few years back, and was told the tale of how it got it's name within minutes of entering the pub. Walking from the pub to the centre of town, I was told again by two separate strangers that I chatted to (I was asking for directions if I remember), so I heard the tale two and a half times (the third time the person said to me 'do you know how the Snowdrop Inn got its name?' and I was able to show that I did, so that doesn't really count as a whole extra time...)
@@DD-qq8sn Odd little place, looking at Google Maps. Appears to only be a restaurant/pub now, but has a mechanized alligator, fish and anchor theme decor on the outside. Most reviews seem positive and they are said to be dog friendly too.
Amazing, I have been a huge fan of your channel, watched every video, and showed multiple people your account and now you’re doing a documentary on the town I called home for the first 28 years of my life! How strange. Keep up the amazing work!
This is one of those instances when death is completely preventable, yet people refuse to comprehend the danger.
It's easy to conclude that, but also, part of surviving life is deciding to ignore a lot of potential dangers out of the view that the likelihood of them causing harm is less than the likelihood of the reaction causing harm. In this case, it was a bad call, but how many other similar calls are good? Deciding to change your general daily life to do X or to avoid Y is a calculation that we use many shortcut heuristics for, and *most* of the time it's correct to not shift your behavior.
Getting better heuristics about *when* to shift behavior, that's crucial. Though also, when it's a freak occurrence like this, the heuristics don't help much. Imagine trying to figure out the danger of a volcano eruption from a place that has never, in thousands of years, dealt with a volcano. Heck, before Mt. St. Helens blew, a lot of people thought it couldn't possibly be all that destructive....
These were very poor people, being "offered" shelter in the workhouse, which was home to the only people in town poorer than them, and known for being a cold, brutal place to be. Some probably thought it was a trick to take their homes. Most were likely afraid that if they went in, they wouldn't come out, avalanche or no. They chose a short term gamble (the possibility of an avalanche) over a long term risk (life in the workhouse). Whether or not they understood the immediate danger really doesn't matter. For many, a possible quick death in snow would sound less unpleasant than a probable long death in the workhouse.
Easy to say from your perspective now.
Did you even watch the video??
@@myrabeth77
I think you hit the nail right on the head
What a beautiful town! This is event is truly harrowing, and I can't imagine how terrifying such an unexpected event would be. One of those occurrences that, unless you've seen it before, you wouldn't believe it could happen. I would love to see Lewes in person some day.
It IS beautiful! We'd love for you to come visit; it's very quaint. Be warned, however; it's somehow all uphill...
@@Owl_bee Sounds like my former college campus! : D
Future video suggestion. You should do a documentary on the 3 mile island disaster. It happened in the 1970’s here in Pennsylvania. The events took place when a valve leak in a nuclear reactor caused radioactive gases to leak. I just learned about it the other day and have been completely infatuated by this accident. Would love if you would cover it!
Plainly Difficult did a really good two parter on that one
@@kittenmatchvids6440 thank you for the suggestion! I’ll be sure to check it out :)
When I visited Lewes the pub was called "The Drop", and it had informative signs up about why it was called that. I was surprised to learn about the snow drop - it was hard to imagine among the low rolling green hills
I really love this channel and the content is never repetitive as you see on other channels so many of these disasters i have never heard anywhere else before you always learn about here so for that I'm very grateful
as a brightonion now living at the mouth of the Ouse, i didn't know this happened, thanks for another great vid!!
The Snowdrop serves up some pretty nice beers . . . but Lewes has its own brewery down by the river!!
I was raised on Harvey's Ale
I'm surprised we have such detailed accounts of what happened. When I saw the date of the incident, I expected to see more approximations for things like deaths, injuries, and the like. Instead, you had everything, right down to the time the cornice started to break.
I used to live in lewes, and I worked in the snow drop pub for a time. I never knew it was named that because of this! I'm not saying ghosts, but when closing up alone, i never felt alone! There was always a feeling someone was with you, but in a reassuring way.
I could imagine an avalanche on Snowdonia or Ben Nevis or even the hills of Yorkshire and above. But never in the middle of smalltown southern England. Thank you for educating us on an interesting piece of history that I previously was ignorant of. I love your channel for unknowns like this.
it wasn't a natural phenomenon.
Although the channel title might be at first interpreted otherwise, I appreciate the sensitivity and circumspection with which you handle the telling of these tragic stories. Well done 👍
Thank you for including older tragedies like this one. I've learned so much from your channel.
My parents live near Lewes so I know it well. Amazing world famous bonfire night, and the Cliff hill fireworks display is brilliant because the bangs bounce of off the cliff.
I only live a few miles from Lewes and had not heard about this, many thank for this piece of history
Such a beautiful place, I've been there a few times. An avalanche in Lewes is the last thing I could imagine! btw Virginia Woolf lived nearby and is buried in the garden of her Monk's House
I've never seen snow in my life and I can't imagine what living through a winter like that would have been like. It's winter here in Melbourne, 12°C, and I was complaining because there's a really cold wind today (although it's sunny).. I think I'll shut up!
How did most people heat their homes back then? Any wood outside would be wet and doesn't sound like you could transport much...
I’ve lived in Lewes my whole life and never knew this even happened! Amazing what you find out on one of your favourite yt channels!
I used to drink at the "Snowdrop Inn", and its how I first became aquainted with this freak of nature. Lewes has strange geography, where the river Ouse carves a gap through the surrounding chalk downland. Thats why this inland town has its very own "white cliffs" which plunge several hundred feet straight down to river level, and creates a uniquely mountainous environment in the heart of southern England.
Lewes was also the scene of other horrors- the Protestant bonfires of 1556-7 saw a total of 17 men burned alive at the stake because of their religious beliefs. To this day they are commemorated every November 5th in the bonfire procession through the town, a ceremony which predates, but ties in with, Guy Fawkes night. It is a pretty unique event.
Great work as always. Still hoping you might do a video on the Wellington Avalanche, the deadliest one in the United States. It knocked two stranded trains, a passenger train and mail train, off a mountainside into the valley below. Notable because of the efforts of the railroad company to clear the snow and get the trains out prior and the company manager on the scene took full responsibility for not getting them out in time.
Thank you for such a straight forward, no nonsense telling of this tragic tale. Ive not heard of this disaster before.
Reminds me of the great flood of 1998, Del Rio, Texas. Tropical Storm Charlie moved up the Rio Grande and sat on the town for three days. The old district of the town was washed away. A local dam broke. Around twenty people died. Incidentally my family had left Del Rio about two weeks prior because my grandfather passed away. So it spared our family. When we returned home, the schools reopened. My school had this brown line about a foot or so off the floor going through the school's main building. I asked a friend what that line is. He said, "That's how high the flood got." We were lucky.
It's Tuesday morning! Hooray! I adore this channel so much ❤
Crazy, I grew up the town over, and travelled through Lewes daily for years for school and uni, and I never knew about this. Thank you for sharing 😊
Well I never thought I'd see an episode on this channel about my home town!
I’ve heard of avalanches occurring all the time in Switzerland. In fact, yodeling was a form of communication before radios and phones were invented, shouting could potentially trigger avalanches but yodeling was not as big of a risk.
Alpine horns would set off smaller “controlled avalanches”, to prevent build up of snow and such for larger avalanches. Cuckoo clocks were invented because clocks that chimed would even be an avalanche hazard. My parents told me and my siblings this, they learned this when my dad was stationed in Europe as an army officer after his tour in Vietnam.
Its nice to see a local area of Sussex featured I am 8 miles from Lewes and vaguely knew of this tragedy but not well though have drank in the Snowdrop Inn. Cheers for sharing.
I really love this channel! Please continue to make these informative videos.
I live very close to Lewes and i was not even aware that this ever happened. Ive walked all over the South Downs and would never have believed it was the location of a deadly avalanche......CRAZY!!
Your editing skills and content are amazing
What a tragic story! Thank you for sharing this moment of history. Imagine being there during the avalanche.
I work in Lewes, in the quarry next to this! And drink in the Snowdrop.
Please cover the Florida Condo collapse!
Killer avalanches in Sussex?,wow,who'd have thought it?another fascinating tale,thanks for posting
Not only will the Workhouse as a shelter have been physically unappealing but it's very name would have sent shudders through locals, such was the horror and stigma of ending up in one. My grandparents town had a council run carehome -a nice place, recently modernised BUT the building itself, though "light and airy" was a few generations earlier the town Workhouse. And although it had closed by the time my grandparent's generation were growing up that is what they knew that building and location as, from THEIR parents and grandparents. And they knew the building as a place of shame, a place no one would ever want to end up. So no matter how nice the modernised building was when they were the old people needing care, to them it still had that shadow over it and they didn't like even visiting there, let alone being cared for in there. That stigma has long gone now, died out with the last generation who knew people who spokeof those places in hushed tones because they had seen them in operation...
I was raised ten minutes from Lewes. NEVER heard about this until now. Fascinating.
Thank you for sourcing mostly relevant images, rather than meaningless stock images. Nice work.
Great video as always! Please do the Cromañon tragedy in Buenos Aires Argentina.
I always forget how much I love watching this channel until the intro music starts playing
I went to college in Lewes, I used to drink in the Snow drop pub, built on the site of those houses that were destroyed
Wow! I live about 5 miles from Lewes in Brighton and have never heard of this. It's a great little town, good job the avalanche didn't happen in recent times, the damage to the artisan bread and new age crystal stores would be devastating.
😂😂😂😂
It's so bizarre hearing how close this is to me. When I clicked the video, I expected it to be over the sea in a different European country... But to hear it was less than an hour's drive away in a non-mountainous area of flatland like my home... It's just surreal. I have never heard of anything like this here.
wow, i've spent a lot of time studying and working in Lewes over the years and never heard of this!
OMG and that's why it's called the Snowdrop!
I used to walk along that area when I grew up in Lewes in the 90’s to get to the Fish and Chippy for lunch. I remember being told about the avalanche and it was hard to believe as a kid. Sounded so made up especially since we very rarely got snow and when we did is was so light.
All winter here in the rockies there are the sounds of distant explosions. It's the parks people shooting grenades at the cornices to force avalanches while they're still small, so they can't hurt anyone when they get big later
How scary! May the victims rest in peace. I have a suggestion for a future episode: The Courrieres Mine Disaster. To this day it is Europe's deadliest mining accident, killing 1,099 miners.
The Oso landslide in Washington State would make for an interesting video, and I don't think it has been covered much. The scale of the actual landslide is shocking. It sadly killed 43 people, destroyed a bunch of homes, blocked a river causing flooding, and took out a large section of a highway.
My grandma was there. She often spoke of the bravery In the men and women involved in the rescue effort. Commendations to these courageous folk
I hadn't heard of this disaster before - thank you
Interesting fact about that pub? It was the first pub in the area to be designed / built / expressed entierly using 8-bit graphics.
Just looked up the band that does the theme music for this channel. They make my entire body fall asleep. I dropped everything I picked up the entire time.
I was at the snowdrop inn very recently - had no idea it was named for this disaster! Very fascinating stuff
Thanks for the images of a cornice! I was an Earth science major and I had no idea what they were. Much appreciated!!
If you want another avalanche to do a video on, you should look into the Wellington train disaster in Washington State. Deadliest avalanche in US history.
oh wow! I live near lewes, so hearing it in a video is so surreal. It's crazy something like this happened there!
I like the lil nameplates for some of the images. nice touch!
I like the ambient music in this video. Nice touch FH
Love your videos! Really interesting stuff...
Have you ever heard of the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster from Dundee? Its an interesting story, and the stumps of the old bridge can still be seen in the water to this day...
Just this winter, an entire farmhouse and barn was thrown into the ocean by an avalanche here in Tromsø. Never in recorded history has there been an avalanche in that area. Similar thing happened in Longyearbyen a few years ago.
Dude you KNOW a narrator is phenomenal when the I'm having a physiological meltdown from Agoraphobia from being homeless... And I hear a familiar voice and suddenly feel like I've entered a dark cozy cave.
Solace.
Would some money help? Do you have a link to anywhere I can pitch in?
@@adrienneczerni6516 omg you are such a sweetheart. But honestly, I don't even know how to accept money online
@@adrienneczerni6516 I do get social security disability but it all goes straight to my storage unit my auto insurance and gasoline so that I'm able to move from parking lot to parking lot and not get towed for loitering.
Wait, that one? I thought this was about an avalanche on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, huh...
Though yeah, the South Downs are more dangerous than people think. Rolling hills are not to be taken lightly, at all
You definitely don't associate avalanches with the UK so this is definitely surprising to hear about happening in that country
I used to be a regular of the Snopdrop pub so I know the story but great to find out futher info 👍
These people are going to need a Frontier Psychiatrist after this Avalanche.
I had no knowledge of this! Thank you for the video.
Strange how the weather can rapidly change for no reason other than mother nature and solar activity changing dramatically our weather...
I visited a pub that was know for it's card games in the back room. It was named "Liquor In The Front, Poker In The Rear"
Ahhhh, I love pulling up YT to a fresh Fascinating Horror Vid. Excellent
I love this channel.
I’ve lived all my adult life in Lewes ❤
Thank you so much for covering this tragedy 😢
You should do a video about Frank slide in Alberta CA a rockslide in the mountains leveled a town in 1903.
If the snow that buried parts of California this year happened in Lewes, they could definitely have another avalanche. But in modern times, one would assume there are better alternatives than a workhouse for residents needing to evacuate. Plus there are techniques to mitigate the avalanche danger. Now California is facing the problem of all that snow melting.
Lewes is 10 miles away from me, about a 2 hour drive (over dramatising a little there due to lack of dual carriageway) and doesn't surprise me, it's literally next to a giant hill, in a ditch.