Regular readers may recall our own recent power cut in the wake of Storm Arwen before Christmas? Whether we experience another one tomorrow remains to be seen, but I am confident that many other people down here in South West England will.
The Met Office issued a rare “red” wind warning for our part of the world earlier today:
The Met Office forecasts that:
Extremely strong west to southwesterly winds will develop over southwest England and south Wales early on Friday. Widespread inland gusts of 70-80 mph are likely and up to around 90 mph near some coasts, with dangerous conditions on beaches and seafronts. Winds are expected to ease from the west during the late morning.
What to expect
- Flying debris resulting in danger to life
- Damage to buildings and homes, with roofs blown off and power lines brought down
- Uprooted trees are likely
- Roads, bridges and railway lines closed, with delays and cancellations to bus, train, ferry services and flights
- Power cuts affecting other services, such as mobile phone coverage
- Large waves and beach material being thrown onto coastal roads, sea fronts and homes, including flooding of some coastal properties
In the aftermath of Storm Dudley here are the current power cut maps for Western Power Distribution:
and ESB Networks:
I cannot help but wonder what they will look like by noon tomorrow?
[Edit – 13:00 on February 18th]In a slightly belated answer to the question I posed last night, here are WPD’s current map and tables of woe:
Together with ESB Networks map for Eire:
Plus Scottish and Southern’s south coast map:
plus UK Power Networks’ map for South East England:
The other DNOs don’t provide handy tables of real time outage numbers, but WPD’s reveal that at 12:40 there were 123,955 properties without electric power across their four regions of the UK, of which 26,479 are here in Cornwall with another 30,642 next door in Devon.
Storm Franklin arrived on our shores before all the faults caused by Storm Eunice were repaired. Hence the story continues over at:
Here’s how WPD’s power cut map looks at 7 AM:
The Met Office’s “red” wind warning for Storm Eunice has been extended to include South East England::
The Energy Networks Association report that:
In their 3 PM Storm Eunice update WPD state that:
UKPN report via twitter that:
In this evening’s Storm Eunice “Red Alert” SSEN report that:
In their 5 PM Storm Eunice update WPD report that:
In their latest national update the ENA report that:
SP Energy Networks report in their 5 PM adverse weather update that:
UK Power Networks report that:
In their 8:30 PM update UK Power Networks report that:
SP Energy Networks report in their 10:30 PM adverse weather update that:
In their 7:30 AM update on Saturday the Energy Networks Association report that:
In their 8:45 AM adverse weather update on Saturday SP Energy Networks report that:
In their 11:30 AM update on Saturday UK Power Networks report that:
Here’s the WPD power cut map as dawn breaks over North Cornwall on Sunday:
In their 8 AM update on Sunday the ENA report that:
Around 83,000 customers were without power, down from 155,000 yesterday evening
Around 1.4m people have been affected by damage to the power network
The areas most affected are:
South West England – approx 29,000 customers
South East England – approx 23,000 customers
South England – approx 20,000 customers
Eastern England – approx 7,000 customers
South Wales – approx 3,000 customers
Efforts are ongoing to reconnect everyone but continuing high winds, and now the newly named Storm Franklin, is making conditions challenging for engineers.
According to the Met Office, Storm Franklin is expected to bring high winds during Sunday night and into Monday morning for much of the UK.
Western Power’s 9AM storm update on Sunday reads as follows:
WPD report in their 5 PM update that:
In their 6 PM update SSEN include details of their customer welfare operations and compensation payments :
It’s now nearly 8 PM on Sunday February 20th. Storm Eunice has departed across the North Sea, but numerous faults remain. In addition Storm Franklin has arrived to add to the number of power cuts. Here’s the current state of the nation:
The ENA’s 4 PM update summarised things as follows: