Thousands in Cornwall still without power as two months’ worth of calls made in 48 hours
Western Power Distribution says they will not stop working until everyone is reconnected
Last updated 21st Feb 2022
Thousands of people across Cornwall are spending a fourth day without any power since Storm Eunice hit.
Western Power Distribution (WPD) says ongoing efforts to deal with the impact of Storm Eunice have unfortunately been hampered in some cases by the arrival of Storm Franklin.
But teams are making progress throughout the day to ensure that they can restore supplies as quickly as humanly possible.
As of 1pm there were 7,553 customers across the South West still without power, with over 3,600 in Cornwall.
In the East Midlands, West Midlands and South Wales regions, power cuts are now back at normal levels. They are continuing to transfer teams from areas of the network that have returned to business-as-usual power cut levels to further bolster the restoration efforts in the South West, on top of the huge volumes of resources already working on the remaining incidents.
WPD says its engineers, control centre and contact centre staff have been working around the clock all weekend, often in challenging conditions, and will continue to do so until all customers have their power supplies restored.
They are thanking everyone for their efforts and have restored supplies to more than half a million customers since Friday, that is over 98% of all customers that were affected.
Teams have responded to more than two months’ worth of calls and received over 2 million website hits in less than 48 hours during one of their busiest ever storm periods.
Operations Director Graham Halladay said: "Storm Eunice has presented us with horrendous working conditions and extreme challenges for our field teams. We are extremely sorry that some of our customers remain without power. Despite the exceptionally long hours our staff are working, every one of us is spurred on by the thought of the extremely difficult circumstances our customers are facing. We know that any period without power is challenging, let alone for several days, during cold conditions.
"We are doing our best to provide support to those in the worst affected areas and would like to extend a huge thank you to all our customers for their understanding, patience and resilience during what has been a tough time for everyone.
"Thousands of WPD colleagues are working exceptionally hard to work to get things fixed, away from their own loved ones for very long periods, and will not stop until everyone is reconnected. No incidents or customers have been forgotten about. We are working through the backlog and have every available resource involved to do so as fast as we can.
"In the meantime, we hope you’ll be reassured to know that our teams will not stop working until every last customer has their lights back on."
Please call Western Power on 105 if you need extra support.
For live power cut information please visit the online map: powercuts.westernpower.co.uk