Teetering head - the requirement was to get the casualties out of the buildings (some of which were collapsing) quickly so the RAF crews used double strop lifts (2 survivors) with the winchman on the roof placing them in the strops. The RN crews seemed to have a different SOP and established hi-line contact with the winchman placing one casualty at a time in a single strop which took much longer.
Comms were a bit of a nightmare with the ARRCK trying to control the ac on HF (v noisy), Falmouth CG using channel 0 and being stepped on by Swansea, and all the ac on 123.1. Add to that the howling from wet intercom leads (we got there first in the middle of a thunderstorm), the lightning strikes around the high ground and the hail and it was a sporting old afternoon.
My worry on arrival was that there were people trapped in the cars that were being swept down the river to the sea - that would have been an interesting winching scenario!