Storm Darragh: Power cuts isolate villages

Parts of Porlock have been without power since Sunday

More than 2,000 homes and businesses still have no power after Storm Darragh hit the country over the weekend.

Some people in Somerset have had no electricity or internet for three days.

The village of Porlock went without power for 30 hours and it was lost again on Monday for about six hours.

Deborah Stanyon, from the Porlock Information Centre, said: "I was so concerned because we are an elderly population here in our village and there would be people here who were frail and vulnerable who had no back-up heating."

'Completely isolated'

Ms Stanyon said the internet was also down because of the power outage and many people in the village no longer had landline telephones.

"All forms of communication have gone down," she said.

"It really was the most incredible feeling of being isolated.

"We have to think about our local businesses and local economy but what concerns me most is how reliant we are completely on electric."

Andrew Tizzard, from Othery, said that while the power had come back on in the village, there was still no internet connection.

He said: "The internet is something we tend to rely on heavily these days."

He added that parts of Othery had been without internet since Saturday.

"We can't work, we have no mobile signal and we have an elderly, vulnerable section of our community and they are completely isolated," he said.

'Worst storm'

Last year Ofgem announced an increase in the storm compensation cap from £700 to £2,000 following the findings of its review into the response to Storm Arwen.

Dan Fancy, a specialist energy advisor from a Citizens Advice Bureau in the South West, said they had been busy during the severe weather.

"There are compensation schemes through the guaranteed services procedure," he said.

"It depends on what category the storm is. Most people should receive it automatically."

Roisin Quinn, from National Grid, said: "It was the worst storm we've seen for seven years so we had a really significant number of faults - things like trees blowing down and landing on power lines.

"We work really hard to make sure our network is as resilient as possible. We have an annual programme of tree cutting right across our patch."