Tag Archives: Storm Eunice

Storm Franklin Power Cuts

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There are still numerous faults across South West England caused by Storm Eunice last Friday that haven’t been repaired yet. Now a lot more power cuts have been added to the long lists of UK DNOs thanks to the arrival across the British Isles of yet another named storm yesterday, Storm Franklin. Here’s how the Met Office initially announced the news:


Storm Franklin has been named as the low-pressure system is expected to bring high winds during Sunday night and into Monday morning for much of the UK.

The latest storm follows on from a week in which Storm Dudley and Storm Eunice also impacted the UK, although wind gusts from Storm Franklin are expected to be lower than Eunice which triggered two Red Weather Warnings.

Northern areas of Northern Ireland are covered by an Amber Wind Warning that will be in force from early Monday morning. Within the Amber Warning area, winds could be in excess of 80mph in exposed coastal areas, but more widely between 60 and 70mph. Damage to buildings is possible, and there’s likely travel disruption.


An extended Yellow Warning for wind which covers much of the rest of the UK, except the northeast, has also been issued for Storm Franklin. Within the yellow warning area, wind gusts will be 65-75mph in coastal areas, and more widely 50-60mph further inland. The coasts of the northwest of England and the southwest of Scotland could see gusts of up to 75mph for a short period on Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Here are the by now all too familiar live power cut maps from across the British Isles this morning, starting with the island of Ireland:

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Storm Eunice Blacks Out Davidstow

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It’s just gone 10 AM, and Storm Eunice is raging outside. Our lights went out and our uninterruptible power supplies started beeping a couple of minutes ago. The lights came back on and the beeping stopped a few seconds later. There are 13,884 properties suffering a power cut in Cornwall, but at least ours was brief!

However some other local residents are not so fortunate:

Western Power Distribution currently estimate that the fault will be fixed by 1 PM, but what with one thing and another that strikes me as being a bit optimistic.

[Edit – 11:00 February 19th]

WPD have been gradually fixing the faults on their network in the Davidstow area following Storm Eunice yesterday. However there are still 690 properties that have been without electricity for over 24 hours:

There are also still several more faults nearby:

[Edit – 14:00 February 19th]

It seems our flickering lights this morning meant that we’ve just dodged another metaphorical electric bullet here on the fringes of Davidstow. Whilst yesterday’s fault is now almost fixed:

another big high voltage fault hit this side of the Atlantic Highway this morning:

[Edit – 18:00 February 19th]

We may have managed to dodge the first two bullets, but unfortunately not the third. I went on a bike ride around the neighbourhood this afternoon try to find some WPD engineers. More on all that in due course, but I failed miserably in my mission until the very end of my ride. This was the sight that greeted me at the end of our lane:

This was the reason for their visit:

[Edit – 12:00 February 20th]

We’ve received some unexpected good news this morning. Thanks to the efforts of Western Power’s engineers by floodlight overnight electricity is already flowing around our ring mains once again!


Storm Eunice Wreaks Havoc

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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:

“Storm Franklin Power Cuts“