Major incident declared as 30,000+ face 4th day of Storm Arwen power cuts
Efforts continue to restore power across the north east of Scotland
More than 30,000 families are facing a fourth day without power and police have declared a major incident as electricity engineers continue efforts to fix nearly 500 faults on the network across the north east of Scotland following Storm Arwen on Friday.
All schools in Aberdeenshire, as well as 11 primaries in Angus and 2 in Kinross are closed while NHS Grampian has suspended vaccination clinics.
Train services between Aberdeen and Dundee remain suspended, but the line to Inverness has been repopened.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks says its teams remain at red alert status.
On Sunday engineers reconnected another 15,000 customers including Kemnay, Hatton, Mossat, Oldmeldrum, Cruden Bay and Strichen
Since the start of Storm Arwen at around lunchtime on Friday, power has been restored to 88,000 customers.
"I've been really worried about getting hypothermia"
Tyn Ord's isn't expecting to be switched back on until tonight and told Northsound 1 News: "I've been really worried about getting hypothermia. I know it sounds like I'm being dramatic, but I'm not. I don't ever want to feel this cold again.
"Even when they are sending us messages about when power is going to come on it's not really specific. What particular areas are affected so we know if we need to book hotels or find somewhere we can stay?"
Storm Arwen worse than 'Beast from the east'
Mark Rough, Director of Customer Operations at SSEN, said:
“Storm Arwen has resulted in some of the most significant and challenging conditions experienced the North of Scotland in decades, resulting in catastrophic damage to several overhead circuits with multiple instances of damage which need to be repaired before power can be restored.
“The damage caused by Storm Arwen is at least three times greater than we experienced from the Beast from the East storm in 2018, demonstrating the scale of challenge our teams have faced.
“We continue to make good progress carrying our repairs and restoring power and would once again like to thank our customers for their continued patience and understanding in what continues to be very challenging circumstances
"The extent of damage means the repair work needed is complex and often requires lengthy clearance of access just to reach the problem areas, with substantial tree cutting and re-erection of overhead network infrastructure.”
SSEN says it will provide a breakdown of expected restoration times for areas which are still power today.
Support is being prioritised for the most vulnerable Priority Services Register customers, such as those dependent on medical equipment, and 4X4 vehicles are being used to deliver hot food and drinks to customers on the list in some of the more remote and isolated communities:
Rest Centres have also been established at:
- Ballater at the Victoria and Albert Hall
- Eassie & Nevay Hall
Emergency food vans
From 7am welfare facilities offering hot food and drinks will be available at:
- Dalrulzion Hotel, Glenshee
- Kirriemuir, near Bon Scott Statue
- Aboyne, The Green
- Cruden Bay, Main Street
- Strichen, Strichen Park
- Keith, Curry Contractors Yard (outskirts of Keith)
- Kintore, Primary School
- St Combs, Community Hall
- Turriff, Tesco car park
- Tarland, in the square