Over 10,900 properties across the South West are still without power today (Monday, 21st February) as disruption from high winds continues in the area.
Western Power Disribution says Storm Eunice has been the worst storm they have ever experienced in the South West region and with more high winds today from Storm Franklin, crews have faced tough conditions.
A spokesman said its engineers are working hard to restore electricity, adding: “Conditions in parts of our region are dreadful, with high winds and heavy rain, but our teams are battling on.”
As reported here, hundreds of local properties were still without power across our area on Sunday evening, including in Burnham-On-Sea, Highbridge, the Huntspills, Brean, Edingworth, Biddisham and Berrow.
“We have now restored 98% of the customers affected by Storm Eunice and hundreds of field staff are working hard to restore the remaining 14,699 in our South West region who were directly affected by the storm,” adds Western Power.
“We know these customers are dealing with extremely difficult situations without power and we are working hard to fix every last incident and keep people informed.”
“We expect to restore customers by Monday night, but we are doing all we can to get the lights on earlier for many customers wherever possible, depending on the specific repair needs at each remaining location. As we have done since Friday, we will again be working throughout the night to make further restorations.”
‘Worst storm we have experienced in South West’
Western Power’s Operations Director Graham Halladay adds: “This has been the worst storm we have ever experienced in our South West region and I am grateful for the incredible resilience our customers are showing. We are doing our utmost to get the network fixed as soon as possible. We have had hundreds of faults, many of them affecting a small number of customers.”
“As well as our teams out in the field and in our Control Rooms and Contact Centres, we also have teams working behind the scenes to get equipment to the right places and organising welfare support for our most vulnerable customers. They too have been working long hours because no one at Western Power Distribution likes the thought of our customers being left without power.”
“Unfortunately, the sheer devastation Storm Eunice left has made accessing and repairing faults extremely challenging, which is why it is taking longer than we would like to carry out repairs. We are sorry and we are doing our level best to get every single customer’s lights back on.”
Graham says the Western Power website has received 1.8 million hits – two months’ activity in two days. “On a normal weekend, we would expect around 21,500 hits and even Storm Arwen only saw 537,000 hits,” he adds.
