Thousands of properties across Kent and the south east are still without power following damage caused by Storm Eunice yesterday (February 18).
The weather caused a month’s worth of faults in a day. UK Power Networks’ equipment has been damaged in more than 1,800 locations.
The company has managed to restore more than 84% of those affected, by remote control so far. Now winds have subsided, engineers are working to locate, assess and begin repairing damage to restore supplies as quickly as possible.
Engineers have restored power to 533,312 properties. Numbers will change and there are currently 34,695 properties without power across the East of England and 58,389 off across the South East including 33,300 in Kent.
Times estimated for repair range from this afternoon running into tomorrow.
A UK Power Networks statement says: “We will be prioritising damage affecting the largest groups of customers first. We are working hard to restore all supplies as quickly as possible, although this is a multi-day event.”
For anyone who needs extra support during a power cut call 0800 028 4581 and ask about the Priority Services Register.
About 50 years ago there was a debate about over head power lines being put underground, where many are! Power blackouts after the war were common, due to lack of coal, until it was Nationalised under a Labour government! There were power cuts again in 1973/74 when the Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath made us work for only 3 days a week, due to a miners strike that went on for months! To have power cuts now due to a storm is unforgivable in the 21st Century, it makes GB look like a third world country, but don’t hold your breath this rag tag Tory Government will do anything about it!
It really begs the question as to why none of the Labour Governments since 1945 have completed the job of burying the remaining overhead cables underground ? ? ?
Fully agree with you Dumpton. The Tories have caused over 9000 businesses to leave the U.K. and set up in the EU because of Brexit that’s why the Tories hated being in the EU because the EU has laws to Improve standards across the EU and the Tories can’t stand to improve anything they would rather run services into the ground or sell them off cheap to their dodgy rich friends. The Tories are the lowest of the low, what’s even more depressing is those who believe all the lies vote for them
Dumpton and Bill
I agree 100%
But the sad thing is most in thanet and the uk are happy with the Tories.
Thanet has been a Tory strong for decades apart from the odd short time.
People in thanet moan about our hospitals, NHS, Mental health care, schools, public transport, street cleaning, homelessness, lack of council houses, high private rent, building on farmland the list goes on. The people of thanet VOTED for THIS. They want all of the above. Why else do they keep voted these nomarks in ?
I am still waiting for my tax refund from the Tories for using MY taxes to pay for thatchers funeral.
Putting cables underground is a question of cost. It’s much easier and cheaper to string wires up on poles or pylons. For one thing, there’s no need to insulate the cables.
The HV cables that run between pylons rarely cause problems (unless brought down by accumulation of ice). It’s the medium voltage lines that serve farmsteads and small communities that suffer most: when a tree falls on them, the line comes down.
Mr Fed Up. The best thing about Thatcher was her funeral she was a truly evil person. She sold off council houses that were NOT hers to sell to buy votes those houses were built and paid for by taxpayers she robbed councils across the U.K. Of billions of pounds of assets and rentals income. Now the Tories have cost the U.K. trillions of pounds in Brexit and incompetence in the contracts giving out in the pandemic on PPE and other corruption with their criminals friends
As ruled this week in the High Court.
I am totally amazed, at somebody posting a comment about anybody, who is dead, saying the best thing was their funeral (Mrs Thatcher) and they were truly evil.
I would class this statement as a form of
‘hate speech’
You are obviously a Labour supporter and as such did you think it was alright for Tony Blair to take this country to war?
I’m with Bill, Thatcher’s war against nationalised industries, Iron, steel, ship building, coal, destroyed whole communities, which did not need to happen! Yes there was over production in many cases, throughout the EU, but in the case of Germany they closed down pits for 2 days a week, and allowed the miners to work 3, drawing unemployment benefit for those 2 days! I was married to a German women at the time, and frequently went to her home town, which had coal, steel, and ship building industries being slowly closed down this way, but there was no industrial unrest, and most workers were retrained in new industries! Thats one reason why I voted to Remain, because the Tories can’t run a bath! And don’t forget Thatcher’s incompetence caused the Falklands war, which was totally unnecessary, and killed hundreds, and hundreds of people, mainly conscripted Argentinians!
Firstly let me say I am quite apolitical as no one party has all the solutions. But if you are going to bring politics into every topic on this website at least be objective about it.
1. It was not just Tories who voted for Brexit – look at the huge number of Labour voters who did too. In fact if not for the Labour voters, Brexit would not have gone through.
2. I completely disagree with the sale of council houses but I’d like to know why during all the years we had a Labour government, the selling off of council houses was not revoked.
3. It is not just the UK which has some overhead power lines so you can’t compare it to a third world country. Look at the USA – it is far worse there and so many of the huge forest fires in CA are caused by fallen power lines.
Jane,
1. I don’t honestly believe anyone is truly apolitical. I’m what os known as a floating voter, I will not vote for anyone if I don’t want to. I’m not a sheep who votes for crooks and liars.
2. Labour were too late to stop the sell of council houses, by the time labour came to power most had been sold off.
3. Because the Tories sold off the utility companies none of them want to go to the expense of putting the cables underground and since they’ve been sold off they are much more expensive and take far longe to carry out repairs.
4. Brexit has proven to be a complete scam carried out by con artist like Johnson / Farage / Rees Mogg and others telling lies lies lies. Voters were mislead and deceived into thinking that politicians were telling the truth when in fact they were telling lies..We now all know what liars they were are.
I don’t know if Bill’s second point is correct but I agree with him about leaving the EU.
Spoken like a true left leaning socialist and remainer.
As Jane has rightly said, it was not just some conservatives who voted to leave,(a lot were remainers) labour and lib dems did too.
It was a legal democratic vote to leave.
Why don’t all you remainers accept it.
It would not matter which Government was in power at the moment, Hurricane Eunice has nothing to do with politics.
Storm Eunice
Brexit was not obtained through democracy it was obtained through lies and deceit voters were scammed mislead cheated given the wrong information. By Boris Johnson the same man who cheated on his wife who lied to the public.
Your description of brexit sounds very much like your typical general election.
It doesn’t matter which party’s in power because it will be SSDD!
What is “SSDD”?
Same sh#t different day, Marva.
Let’s not despair about the people of the UK. All this talk about how everybody loves Boris Johnson was never true.
In 2019, only 43% of the ones who voted actually supported Johnson’s version of the Tory Party. 55% of voters supported Parties that wanted a second referendum!
Former Tory Prime Minister, John Major, recently emphasised Johnson’s poor performance by estimating that getting only 43% of actual voters meant that, taking non-voters into account, Johnson got his “historical landslide” with only just over 30% of British adults voting for him!
In fact , NONE of the Parties have got more than half of the votes for decades! For that matter, the results of the EU Referendum reveal a similar story.
For Leaving 37%
For Remaining 35%
Didn’t vote 28%
Hardly overwhelming.
The scandal is not so much that the UK population is hopelessly lost to a kind of Tory/populist cult. The scandal is that NOBODY in the media, newspapers or TV, let alone in the major political Parties, will ever raise this shocking fact that we are hardly ever governed by people chosen by a majority of us!
It’s a rigged sham! Far from accepting Brexit, or a corrupt government of Russian-backed oligarchs, we are justified in campaigning for change regardless of whether an election is due or not. It’s all to play for!