29 Dec 2015

Electricity North West finalises preparations for Storm Frank (2000hrs)

Electricity North West, the region’s power network operator, is finalising plans to protect customers’ power supplies as Storm Frank is forecast to impact our region this evening.

In response to the severe weather warning issued by the Met Office, the Company has inspected and protected key substations to help maintain supplies to Cumbria’s homes and businesses. Generators have also been located in the County’s towns to enable rapid deployment if required.

Vulnerable customers are being proactively contacted by the Company; care homes were contacted earlier today. The British Red Cross have been alerted to provide support to customers should this be needed. Electricity North West has provided around 12,000 hot meals to customers left without a power supply as a result of Storm Eva, in addition to the 22,000 provided following Storm Desmond, and and is preparing to do so again if areas are left without power.

The Company announced earlier today that it had fully restored the power network after Storm Eva and and is confident that safety checks to previously flooded properties will be completed this evening to restore supply to the remaining small number of customers.

Chris Fox, Incident Manager for Electricity North West, said: “Customers in the North West have been impacted by devastating flooding throughout December with many spending Christmas in flooded homes. We understand how difficult is to also lose power and that’s why we worked hard to get our customers back on supply as quickly as possible when flooding impacted the power network. Our priority now is to ensure that we do everything we can to protect the network from the impact of Storm Frank and to be able to respond quickly if any power supplies are impacted.

“It continues to be a challenging time for the communities in our region and we are grateful for the goodwill and support that has been shown to our colleagues by all of our customers. We will do everything we can to maintain their power supply over the next few days.”

More information will be posted at www.electricitynorthwest.co.uk and on Twitter @ElectricityNW.

Vulnerable customers, including some older or disabled people, or those with a medical dependency on electricity, can also sign up to the Priority Services Register by visiting www.enwl.co.uk/priority or contacting Electricity North West on 0800 195 4141.

For advice on how to stay safe in a flooding event, please visit www.enwl.co.uk/power-cuts/flooding-advice.

To report a power cut please call 0800 195 4141, follow @ElectricityNW on Twitter or visit www.electricitynorthwest.co.uk.