Storms Leave Thousands Without Power

Two storms in quick succession of one another have caused power cuts for an estimated 118,000 homes in Scotland and a further 80,000 in Northern England. By Monday evening of this week, this issue had still not been remedied with 18,100 still being left with no power.

Effects have been even more severe than this, with two people killed by falling trees – a young boy in Staffordshire and a woman in Aberdeen.

The damage has been widespread with local authorities responding in a variety of ways. Several schools in Aberdeenshire, the Highlands and Moray have been closed early this week due to either storm damage or remaining power outages.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) stated that the majority of those left without power at the beginning of the week were mainly centred in rural Aberdeenshire and the Angus border. It is reported by Northern Powergrid that those customers without power in England were mainly centred in Northumberland, County Durham, and Tyne & Wear.

There has been serious disruption in National rail services too, with some lines between Edinburgh and Newcastle having to close early this week too. Most of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and parts of Northern England were placed in a yellow Met Office warning for the severity of wind over the weekend.

Some gusts of 92mph were recorded in the Western Isles on Sunday night, with the yellow warning remaining in place for parts of Northern Scotland for much of this week as gusts approaching 65mph were expected.

There is expected to be a period of calm following the storms before a brief cold snap at the end of the week.

Scottish Woes

In Scotland, Storm Malik caused 80,000 homes to lose power on Saturday before Storm Corrie followed up on Sunday with another 38,000. The electricity network in the North East and Highlands was severely damaged from being battered by gusts of wind up to 92mph.

The power outages for some 16,900 houses lasted until Monday evening, according to Scottish and Southern Energy Network. They had previously stated the badly-impacted Stonehaven had power fully returned to the area.

It is estimated that around 19,000 of these cases were related to two major faults which affected 13,000 in Stonehaven and a further 6,000 in Deeside.

Due to the severity of the damage, a number of welfare centres in Aberdeenshire have been opened for those needing showers and power, while hot food has been served in various school canteens. Food trucks have also been sent to local areas of high need.

It is advised for anyone without power who needs advice or support on the matter should call the assistance phoneline on 0808 196 3384.

The efforts for power restoration have continued on into the mid-week, with small clusters of isolated rural customers making the task a little more difficult.

Graeme Keddie, SSEN Director of Corporate Affairs, spoke to BBC Radio’s ‘Good Morning Scotland’ to reassure that they were putting in place additional help for customers while engineers repaired power lines –

“Our teams are scouting the lines now, we’ve got helicopters out now we’ve got light to make sure we’ve got full assessment of the impact of the damage and give accurate restoration times to our customers… The firm has 21 welfare vehicles providing hot food and drink to customers, and an offer of alternative accommodation has been made to those who are still without power because of Storm Malik.”

As already stated, several schools in Aberdeenshire, the Highlands and Moray have had to temporarily close due to storm damage or power outages. SSEN welfare centres have been set up in both Cannich and Munlochy to provide hot food and drinks for those without power.

On Sunday evening the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team had a full team call-out for a missing walker in high winds and snow. The missing person was lost on the Cairngorm Plateau but was found by a climbing party and subsequently escorted to safety.

Scottish Travel Issues

Although most routes have reopened at this point, the aftermath of Storm Malik and Storm Corrie caused severe travel disruption:

A92 in Aberdeenshire closed at Bridge of Muchalls and Stonehaven after a lorry overturned in high winds.
A90 Laurencekirk had both directions restricted because of a fallen tree.
A9 was partially blocked near Golspie in the Highlands because of a fallen tree.
In Edinburgh one lane of M90 was closed from the Scotstoun Junction to the Kirkliston Junction of the M9 after a lorry overturned and cannot be recovered until noon.
Some ferry sailings have been cancelled or delayed.

Contact Your Supplier Today

Storm Malik and Storm Corrie have caused massive amounts of damage, as well as frustration for suppliers and customers alike. There have been numerous short-comings exposed in the communication practice of both suppliers and Distribution Network Operators (DNOs).

Things have not been made as clear as they should have been.

Luckily, at Energy Solutions – we believe in a better way of doing business. We compile dozens of free online resources for our customers, clients, and website visitors to use whenever things get tricky.

If you are struggling to find the details you need for your energy supplier, you can find out everything you need to know (and more) in our Supplier Index.

If you are finding it frustrating trying to reach out to your Distribution Network Operators, or simply do not know who they are – we have an online tool for that too! Simply head over to our Free Online Webpage to get things started.

Power Has Been Restored

In Northumberland and County Durham, about 97,000 houses were estimated to have suffered power cuts directly as a result of Storm Malik (Saturday) and Storm Corrie (Sunday). Northern Powergrid have recently announced that they have restored power to all those affected and would now move swiftly onto making compensation payments where applicable.

The firm has since apologised, stating that they are;

“Sorry for the inconvenience”

Head of Customer Service, Louise Lowes, had this to say;

“We understand that it is difficult for our customers to be without power for this length of time… We have appreciated their patience throughout and we’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

Northern Powergrid have been quite outspoken about the learned lessons around communication learned from Storm Arwen (November 2021). Storm Arwen caused many properties cut off from power for up to six days, customers throughout this period complained that they couldn’t access the firm’s website.

Since then, Northern Powergrid have said that they would make positive chances to reinforce their website in the pursuit of providing a better service.

Durham County Council have since de-escalated the major incident status declared in the wake of Storm Malik.

Meanwhile, Durham County Council said it has de-escalated the major incident status declared in the wake of Storm Malik. Further to this, the Tyne and Wear Metro have also fully reopened the stretch between Benton and Monkseaton that was closed for three days due to storm damage.

Energy Solutions by us, for you

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