POWER has now been reconnected in 240,000 homes across the North East following the disruption caused by Storm Arwen.
Thousands of homes in County Durham were damaged, left without power and were inaccessible after strong winds, rain and snow caused disruption for more than 10 days.
Northern Powergrid announced the news on Tuesday evening while naming Arwen as "the worst storm in over 20 years".
However its live power cut map still showed areas of the region affected by power cuts relating to Storm Arwen.
A statement released on Tuesday read: "We are pleased to confirm that, despite the additional challenges presented by today’s difficult weather, we have completed the work that our customers needed us to do to restore power tonight. Thank you for your patience as we battled to reconnect customers following the disruption caused by the worst storm in over 20 years.
"We have reconnected 240,000 homes and businesses that were without power because of the extensive storm damage caused to our electricity network. We’re sorry that we couldn’t get it done quicker, because we know that it has been very difficult for our customers to be without power for such a long time.
"This experience has taught us that there are areas where we need to improve. In particular, in the way we use our systems to communicate with you in the event of major power cuts. We have already made some changes and will learn more lessons from the reviews that will follow."
Read more: Northern Powergrid to make County Durham residents wait for compensation
But residents impacted by power outages in County Durham have reacted angrily after suggestions that they’d have to wait for up to three months to be compensated for their time without electricity.
In the aftermath of the power shortages, talk has now turned to compensation and reimbursing people for the food, hotel stays, and hot drinks people purchased while they didn’t have power.
However, there are suggestions that the compensation scheme could take as long as three months to distribute across everyone impacted by Storm Arwen, due to Northern Powergrid allegedly waiting until all the affected properties are back on the network.
Northern Powergrid added: "The performance of our team in repairing and rebuilding the network has been outstanding. Our dedicated colleagues have worked so hard in extremely challenging circumstances to contact our customers since the storm hit.
"The same is true of our colleagues who have worked with community partners to provide direct welfare support to our customers. Also, we are grateful to the other network companies and our contractors for their support – we could not have done it without them. It has been an enormous team effort.
"In such a large and complex event, it is possible that a customer remains off supply even though we believe we’re finished, for example if some damage remains that we don’t know about. If you are still without power, or you have a safety concern relating to our network, please let us know by calling our 24/7 team on 105.
"Storm Barra was not the size or scale of Storm Arwen and did not cause major damage or disruption to our network. However, the extent of the damage caused by Storm Arwen means that it will take some time to put everything back to normal.
"Many of our customers are currently being supplied by generators which will need to be removed as we complete the permanent repairs. We expect to be working well into the new year to bring our network back to full strength.
"With supplies restored, our next step will include moving quickly to make compensation payments for those customers without power for more than two days and to make any remaining payments needed to honour our financial support package. We understand the strain this has placed on our customers at a difficult time."
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