Rural North East communities worried about oncoming Storm Barra
Many areas are still without power following Storm Arwen
Last updated 7th Dec 2021
Rural communities in the North East who are still without power are battering down the hatches as they prepare for more stormy conditions throughout the day.
The Met Office is predicting 70mph winds with sleet and snow for some areas as Storm Barra hits the region less than two weeks since Storm Arwen first hit the region leaving thousands without power.
Shirley Proudlock has lived in the small village of Kirkheaton in Northumberland for around 30 years and they have only just got a generator to restore their power after 11 days in the dark.
"Powergrid came in last Tuesday and said there is nothing wrong with the transformer. Turns out it is the transformer, and since last Tuesday we've heard virtually nothing", said Shirley.
"No one has contacted us. Powergrid, nothing at all really, just the updates on the village Facebook that people find. I mean there's running a business as well is not much good to anyone because we've had no mobiles, no phone lines, no electric, nothing. It's pretty hopeless.
"One road in and one road out, we block in quite easily. We had a lot of snow last Saturday night and it was pretty treacherous. Yes you get used to it but nothing to this situation.
"If it had happened in London it would've been connected straight away wouldn't it? It's just the way of the world now, we're always forgotten about up here. A lot of people had never even heard of Kirkheaton till you've had this on today."
Met Office warn people should only travel if it's essential
Although Western parts of the UK should see the worst of Storm Barra, there is a yellow warning covering the North East region.
Due to the weather warning, people in the North East are being urged to not travel if not essential.
Met Office worker, Rachel Ayers, says it's slightly different to Storm Arwen and shouldn't be as strong in the North East.
Rachel said: "Storm Barra is coming from the South West, whereas Storm Arwen was more situated in a Northerly wind direction to many places. For a lot of places in the North East that is going to mean that the impact is going to be felt in slightly different areas.
"With the yellow warning it's still worth noting that there may be some travel delays and some power lines may go down. Bare in mind that if you don't need to travel on Tuesday that you should maybe change your plans if necessary as there may still be strong winds around.
"Particularly on the higher streets in the North East there will be some significant snow fall with the snow warning in force from 11 o'clock on Tuesday morning. On high routes we could see some blizzard like conditions when combining the snow with the strong winds, so poor visibility and drifting snow could make some poor driving conditions.
"Right now our priority is making sure we're getting those lights on as soon as we can"
Head of Policy development for Northern Powergrid is Jim Cardwell - he says teams will work through Storm Barra to get everyone back on.
"Our people are really used to working in quite difficult and uncomfortable conditions, but really our thoughts are with our customers and we will do whatever we can to do, as long as it's safe to do it and we're not putting ourselves at risk, we'll absolutely work as hard as we can through these turbulent weather conditions we expect from Storm Barra.
"We fully accept there have been difficulties and of course we'll look into that once this event is over, but right now our priority is about continuing that good communication with our customers and making sure we're getting those lights on as soon as we can.
"We'll be proactively contacting our customers and advising them of what payments we can give them. In addition to that, last week when it became evident just how difficult this situation was, we offered additional welfare support for our customers. All these things have been put in place to try and help people the best we can in what we understand to be very difficult circumstances.