Holiday nightmare for Omagh women evacuated due to wildfires

FOUR Omagh students sadly watched their summer holiday go up in flames this week as wildfires took hold in Greece.

The quartet jetted off to Lindos, a small village in Rhodes, for a sunshine break at the start of last week.

But the girls were among thousands who had to be evacuated due to the wildfires caused by soaring temperatures.

One of the students, Caitlin Houston, told We Are Tyrone, “We knew about the wildfires two days before we were evacuated because one of the hotel workers, who was a local to the area, had told us about them.

We had seen a smoke cloud form the day before we were evacuated and then we started getting the emergency alerts on our phones. Although we had heard nothing about Lindos needing to be evacuated, we knew other areas had been evacuated so we packed our bags just to be safe.”

Caitlin described how, throughout the day, the smoke cloud got bigger and darker and they started to notice ash on the ground.

“Then, at around midnight, we got the emergency alert on our phones to evacuate Lindos. At that point we got our suitcases and waited in reception. The hotel told us that we were being sent coaches by all the travel agencies and we were to make out way to the bus stop.

“When we got to the end of the lane we saw the huge masses of people waiting on transport. We only had to wait about five minutes before an Easyjet bus came and collected us, but, at this point, we had no idea what was happening or where we were going.”

With panic setting in for the young women, they recalled smelling the nearby burning in the hills. As they drove in the cover of darkness, they passed a sign labelled ‘military’ which further heightened their panic.

The four Omagh women arrived to a school which had been commandeered to fit the locals and holidaygoers as travel companies arranged new accommodation and transport for those now displaced by the fires.

Caitlin said, “We ended up at a school not far from Rhodes where they had locals handing out food and water. There was roughly about 2,000 people upon first arrival but people were constantly coming and going, including some military personnel.

“We spent about 13 hours there and slept on a classroom floor, there were some mattresses and yoga mats provided for children. The locals were very good to us and we’re all so grateful for their kindness and support, constantly checking on us and bringing in food.”

In the morning, the students were told that Easyjet was sending them back to their hotel, where a coach would pick them up.

Caitlin said, “When we got back to the hotel we could see there was more ash that had fallen in that area.

“For me, it was definitely nerve-wracking as Easyjet had not been communicating with us at all about our situation. There were no Easyjet reps sent to the school to talk to us, although other airlines had sent someone out.

“It would have been significantly less stressful for us if we had some knowledge of what was going to happen to us or how long we would have to stay evacuated for but they had done nothing to help us at the time of evacuation.”

The four women will have to cut their holiday short and return a day earlier than planned due to the ash in the air.

They will be returning tonight, “all being well”, Caitlin added.