AROUND 1,100 properties across County Durham are still left without power, according to Northern Powergrid, as the utility company continues to deal with the aftermath of Storms Malik and Corrie.
Over the weekend, 80,000 homeowners in the North of England and Scotland were affected by adverse weather, which caused storm force winds – some more than 90mph.
The high winds caused property damage, felled trees and downed electricity pylons, and left many motorists in queues after high-sided vehicles fell at the side of motorways and major A-roads.
Read more: Storm Malik: Compensation for County Durham power cuts
Despite Northern Powergrid making progress over the weekend, it confirmed today (January 31) that 1,129 houses in County Durham need to be reconnected, while 4000 properties across the whole network need their power restored.
Alongside the 4000 houses, the power company also revealed that it had around 200 incidents to restore supplies to those customers across Northumberland, County Durham and Tyne & Wear.
This widespread power outage comes just months after Storm Arwen left 240,000 without power, some for as long as 15 days.
A spokesperson for Powergrid said that it would do everything to bring back electricity to the affected properties but were unable to confirm whether everyone would be back on the grid by today.
They said: “We have imported additional resources into the region, and we are confident that we will successfully restore supplies for the vast majority of those customers – and we intend to do everything we can to get them all done
“There is the possibility that a small number will run into Tuesday – the weather has caused us some additional disruption overnight that we also need to handle during the course of today.
Read more: Storm Malik: Roof torn from home in Bensham, Gateshead
“We will continue to put into practice lessons learned from Storm Arwen by taking the same approach to communicating estimates of restoration times, which worked well yesterday
“The storm brought windspeeds of over 90 mph, however the impact is still much lower than Storm Arwen – and that is primarily due to there being no ice and snow in this storm. Around 80,000 customers have been affected by power cuts.
Northern Powergrid Director, Paul Glendinning, said: “We are within sight of the end. But we still have a lot to do to get the last 4,000 customers reconnected having confirmed that around 200 damage points remain. Restoring these smaller incidents reconnects only a small number of customers for each job.”
Andy Bilclough, Director of Field Operations, added: “Our team is ready to go, and we’ve cancelled all the planned work in the rest of the company to release more resources.
"Other than the inevitable few surprises that always get uncovered at the end of a storm restoration, we have the work planned out for them. We are shooting to get it all done today – we know how difficult it is for our customers to be without power for three days.”
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