NORTHERN Powergrid has revealed that power has been restored to 234,000 homes and businesses in the aftermath of Storm Arwen, which makes up 97 per cent of the overall affected houses.
At the end of last week, 240,000 houses were plunged into darkness, due to Storm Arwen, but with the help of hundreds of engineers and community spirit across County Durham, only 6,000 need returning to electricity.
In the aftermath of the power shortages, the network operator is sharing details of welfare support available for all customers still affected by the storm through a dedicated page on its website - northernpowergrid.com/storm-arwen.
Read more: Thousands of vaccines wasted after Storm Arwen destroys supplies
Northern Powergrid’s teams continue to keep Local Resilience Forums across the North East informed to coordinate multi-agency partner support for the most vulnerable communities affected as a result of Storm Arwen.
A team of more than 2,000 people continue to support the Northern Powergrid response in the field and behind the scenes.
Paul Glendinning, executive director at Northern Powergrid, said: “Our top priorities are reconnecting our customers as soon as possible, keeping them informed to the best of our abilities and doing everything we can to support the wider effort in our communities aimed at helping those who need us the most.
“We’re sorry for the hardship and disruption our customers are experiencing.
"In addition to our restoration efforts and work to keep customers informed, we’ve suspended all other non-essential activities across our business to deploy teams of people and our support vehicles to work with the emergency services, local resilience teams and partners in our communities as part of the wider response to this emergency."
He added: "We have also made financial and practical assistance available to help people through this challenging situation.
“We understand how critical this situation is for our customers and we’re working as fast as we can to deal with a storm impact which is one of the worst that our team has seen.
"Our dedicated teams will not stop until we have everyone affected by the storm back on supply.”
Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
You can also follow our dedicated County Durham Facebook page for all the latest in the area by clicking here.
For all the top news updates from right across the region straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.
Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on newsdesk@nne.co.uk or contact 01325 505054
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here