Storm Eunice sees 1.3m customers disconnected

Networks have been battling to reconnect more than a million homes disconnected by Storm Eunice, which has also caused severe disruption to transport.

As of 4pm on Friday (18 February), the Energy Networks Association said its members had reconnected more than 711,000 customers but another 435,000 were without power.

Wales and the south of England have so far seen the worst effects of the storm. The Met Office, which sent out a rare red weather warning on Thursday, said a provisional wind speed record for England of 122mph had been set at the Needles on the Isle of Wight on Friday morning. The last red warnings the Met Office issued were for Storm Arwen in November and the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018.

In an update at 5pm on Friday, Western Power Distribution said it had restored supplies to more than 350,000 customers but around 146,000 remained without power: 87,000 in the South West, 37,000 in South Wales, 18,000 in the West Midlands and 3,000 in the East Midlands.

The company said its contact centre staff had taken nearly 39,000 calls relating to power cuts and a further 25,600 reports had been made via its website. It apologised for the length of time restorations were taking, stating that although the strongest winds had moved on, conditions remained difficult with incidents of trees falling near teams whilst they were working.

Operations director Graham Halladay said: “I’d like to thank customers for their patience. Conditions are still difficult for our staff. We are now working on deploying extra resources in the worst affected areas.

“Please be assured that we are working extremely hard to restore supplies to all of our customers and our dedicated teams will keep going until everyone is restored. I would like to pay tribute to them – they are working long hours in difficult conditions.”

As of 4pm, UK Power Networks said it had restored supplies to 277,000 properties but more than 113,000 were without power in the South East and almost 55,000 were disconnected in the East of England.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said by 4pm it had reconnected 55,000 customers across its southern license area but 120,000 were off supply.

The company said the extreme winds had caused significant damage to its infrastructure due to fallen and uprooted trees and windborne debris, which were also presenting access issues for their engineers as they scouted and assessed faults.

Richard Gough, director of distribution system operations at SSEN, said: “Storm Eunice looks like being the most significant storm to hit the south of England in decades. As the extreme winds continue to pass through our region, our teams are working carefully in these challenging conditions to assess network damage.

“I would like to thank customers for their patience and reassure them that, as the winds decrease, our teams will make every effort to repair our network and reconnect supplies as quickly and as safely as we can.

“Over 15,000 of our customers are currently logged on to SSEN’s Power Track app – the largest number ever recorded. We encourage customers to report any network damage via the app or by calling 105 and keep a safe distance of any damaged equipment.”

Northern Powergrid said at 4.30pm the storm was beginning to affect its region. It said it had already reconnected more than 3,000 customers but 7,000 were without power.