Editorial: Society depends on those who always put others first in an emergency

Think of yesterday the people who were doing the following types of work:

​Working in hospitals, and units such as intensive care – which, if unmanned, would mean certain death for many of the patients.

Police officers and fire and ambulance crews. Tree surgeons and rescue teams.

People who work in the food industry and who serve in shops on modest wages, which in some cases never closed and in others opened at the earliest opportunity.

And think of the carers, who decided – when told they could go to work or not – to go out as usual to the people they care for, some of whom can’t go to the toilet without assistance and some of whom would not even be able to understand it if no carer came.

Just imagine what would happen if such people did not go to work. Imagine how appalling it would be if our only consideration as a society was that all employees and emergency personnel are shielded from the extraordinarily small risk of being killed in a storm.

The good news is that such an appalling scenario never comes to pass. Never. Always there are people who do what needs to be done to help others in an emergency.

It is always a difficult balance for the authorities to strike between protecting the welfare of their staff and protecting public services. But as the LA fires showed, even when there is grave risk to first responders, we rightly expect them to go to the emergency. They, rightly, go.

It is to those many heroic people, who can’t work from home, and who have more serious things to worry about than an electricity outtage, we as a society are so indebted at these times.

There are serious questions to be asked as to whether transport services such as NI buses and trains needed to be cancelled, particularly later in the day, which was far calmer than the morning. For now, the message is one of thanks to the many workers who always put others first.