Poplar substation fire: East London homes get temporary generators
- Published
Mum of two young girls, Kerry Tabner, was left without hot water for her baby's bottle
Temporary generators have been set up to help some east London homes still without power, after a fire at an electricity substation initially caused 28,000 homes to be cut off.
The fire in Poplar cut off households on Tuesday lunchtime, with almost 3,000 homes without power 24 hours later.
There was also major traffic disruption, and the DLR was suspended.
Some homes in E1 and E14 have now been reconnected using a temporary supply, a UK Power Networks spokesman said.
This included the area around Narrow Street in E14.
In a message to affected residents, he said: "The fire in Castor Lane has caused extensive damage to our network, so to get your power back on, we have re-routed the electricity and used temporary generators.
"These will remain in place for some time due to the amount of repairs needed, but these will be completed as quickly and as safely as possible.
"I'm sorry for the length of time you were without power, and for the disruption this has caused you."
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Kerry Tabner, who has a newborn and a seven-year-old daughter, was left without electricity or hot water for about 20 hours.
Updates were being sent by engineers but Ms Tabner said her phone ended up "dying" and she was completely reliant on friends to feed her children.
She said: "It was a big issue because I couldn't feed my older daughter and I had no boiling water to feed the baby.
"She has bottles, so it was very frustrating and I had to have a friend go and get me pre-made bottles."
She said a van was sent by a local authority or the power firm, "but it was 10 minutes down the road so I couldn't even go and charge my phone or get boiling water".
There was also travel disruption caused by the fire and power outage
UK Power Networks has been working closely with the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to reconnect power and fix damaged equipment.
An LFB spokesman said the cause of the fire was still unknown.
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