Arran weather: Kinloch Hotel becomes island haven

“We’ve been providing food for the older local residents who have been struggling a bit, as well as acting as a base for the co-ordination centre of the west coast of the island,” he said.

“It became clear early on Friday afternoon that we would take on this role. For around a day and a half, we were completely cut off – no telephone or mobile reception.

“But we have been getting supplies in, we’ve got power and things are still fairly positive.

“Organisers are assessing the older people around here to see who are really struggling with the cold and need warmer accommodation, and we’ve got a few of them moving in here. A lot of people have come in to volunteer their time and skills.

“Food-wise, we’re getting fairly short, but we’re getting basics in. We run our own generator, and we did have a bit of a problem with oil, but we’ve got supplies going. So we’re a lot better than most places.

“I think we’re supporting people in a radius of around six miles. We’ve got power workers in just now, and we’ve got about 15 older residents staying here, so it’s about 40 in total. At the time power went off initially, we had 50 Cambridge students plus 20 others, so we had a full hotel.

“This is the worst conditions we’ve had in recent memory; some of the older residents talk about something similar in 1947, but everyone’s mucking in and doing their best. We know all the people who live around here – we’re more a community hotel than just a business.”

For North Ayrshire Council’s island officer Angus MacLeod, the most pressing task for the past four days has been trying to reopen the roads.

“It’s been a case of trying to get diggers to uncover the roads and get our guys out with gritters working around the clock.

“We’ve had them out since four in the morning on Friday because we could see it coming, but we couldn’t anticipate that it was going to be this bad.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”