Thousands of homes were still without power today after Storm Malik battered parts of the UK – with warnings Storm Corrie will bring gusts of up to 90mph.
Tragedy hit yesterday as two people were killed and a total of 80,000 homes in Northumberland and County Durham were affected by power cuts.
Northern Powergrid confirmed 16,000 homes were still without power as of 11am on Sunday, while this number had fallen to 7,000 as of 6.30pm.
One man in Northumberland named the alleged lack of support from his local power supplier ‘a disgrace’ as he prepared to tackle a third consecutive day with no heating, hot water or electricity.
Stewart Sexton, 58, in Alnwick, lost power for 10 days after Storm Arwen and now is back in a similar situation.
He said: ‘No sign of contact or support. Will we be last again? Why should we be last? We pay the same service and expect the same service.
‘It’s a disgrace… nothing from councillors or MP to support us either – zilch.’
Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the MP for Mr Sexton’s constituency, said in her weekly email to constituents that she will ‘continue to push’ Northern Powergrid to compensate their customers in the aftermath of Storm Arwen.
Clare Stirling-Turnbull, 47, in Powburn, Northumberland, also suffered power outages during Storm Arwen and has been without heating and electricity since 9am on Saturday.
‘We are a family of six (which is) slightly more problematic this time as one of the children is currently isolating – she has Covid’, she said.
‘So we can’t go to relatives’ houses… we have no electric, no heating or hot water – we do have a wood burner so can heat one room.’
But the mum has acknowledged the ‘mammoth task’ Northern Powergrid is facing.
‘They have done all they possibly can, reconnection times are only an estimate’, she said. ‘We fully understand that they try their utmost to reconnect as quickly as possible.’
Company director Paul Glendinning said: ‘We have successfully restored supplies to more than 60,000 customers but given the amount of work that there is to do and the fact that we are expecting more high winds during Sunday afternoon, we think that it is likely that a relatively small proportion of our customers will remain without power beyond Sunday night.’
Andy Bilclough, Northern Powergrid’s director of field operations, added: ‘We still have a lot to do but we have a large team out there now in what are currently perfect conditions for the kind of work we do.’
He added that Storm Corrie is ‘a concern’, as the community still struggles to recover from the havoc wreaked over the weekend.
Road closures, fallen trees and power lines are down in parts of County Durham on Sunday where a major incident was declared.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said Storm Malik caused significant damage’ to its network and had left around 18,000 customers without supply as of Sunday at 11am.
As Scotland braces for more bad weather, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘There are amber/yellow @metoffice warnings in place for all of Scotland as Storm Corrie sets in – please heed the warnings and take care. Impacts from the storm are likely to be significant tonight & into tomorrow.
SSEN officials have cautioned that the double blow of Storms Malik and Corrie could mean that some customers may have to wait until the early part of next week before supply problems are fixed.
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