No electricity for over 5 days

Redwurzel

Well-known member
I feel sorry for the 30,000 without electricity since Friday.

We depend so much on electricity for the internet and for all transport and heat in the future.

With more extreme weather becoming common the emergency planning will have to be more thorough and more extensive than we have at present.

 
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We went without power for 30 hours, that was bad enough.
but 5 days !!!
Dosnt bare thinking about, hope these people have some sort of heating
 
Awful, given the temperatures in recent days, and the age of some of those affected.
We were lucky, only out for 4 hours.
Some half a mile away were out for days.
 
How surprising that the people without power are all Northerners.

Can you imagine the national disaster if some of the good folks of Oxford or Guildford were unable to plug in their coffee machines or bread makers for a few hours?

The government has stopped even pretending to care about the North.
 
I hate to bang the eco drum drum again but it does point to needing solar panels and battery storage and making houses more efficient.

True battery storage wouldn't save you from a 5 day power cut, nor would the north of england allow you to generate enough solar to keep the power on but you could at least use it for cooking and heating the water. Problem is this systems are so expensive. If governments are really interested in reducing carbon emissions then they should help more with this stuff.
 
I've recently moved & parts of the village we moved from are still without power. Has been nice to see the community pull together and ensure that everyone is getting a hot meal everyday and that the old folks were being checked on regularly. NPG are now telling people to get into hotels & they'll cover the bill, so they can't be confident of getting the power back on soon.
 
they should have brought the army to support getting the infrastructure up and running, its an absolute disgrace. There's no doubt the the south east would have had different levels support if it happened to them.
 
Blimey, as you say, that's not a good sign is it?
When I worked for NEEB at Cargo Fleet depot the overhead line department only carried about 20 staff and they for safety reasons always worked in pairs so I imagine there will be a massive shortage of trained men nationwide who can deal with the current situation without the removal of fallen trees and associated damage to the network.Since privatisation there has also been cutbacks plus the use of contractors who used have to be authorised before they can work in different areas of the country.
 
When I worked for NEEB at Cargo Fleet depot the overhead line department only carried about 20 staff and they for safety reasons always worked in pairs so I imagine there will be a massive shortage of trained men nationwide who can deal with the current situation without the removal of fallen trees and associated damage to the network.Since privatisation there has also been cutbacks plus the use of contractors who used have to be authorised before they can work in different areas of the country.
All well and good but the forces should have been brought in to help with the grunt work of moving fallen trees. If it was a flood then the forces would have helped. No heating in winter to me is disaster particularly for the vulnerable
 
I am surprised too the Army were not used straight away to remove fallen trees etc. When I heard the storey 2 days ago I was shocked so many were without electricity in the modern age. When we had the hurricane in 1987 I was living in Sussex and I can't remember losing electricity for over 5 days. Many places then lost most of their trees.

This shows the need to put cabling underground.

BT near me what to take current underground cables and put them on telegraph poles!
 
Why doesn’t every sub station have a plug in point for a portable generator (the big Agrekko type). Would get a lot of people up and running quickly at least on a temporary basis.

not expensive, just an extra cubicle on the switchboard.
 
All well and good but the forces should have been brought in to help with the grunt work of moving fallen trees. If it was a flood then the forces would have helped. No heating in winter to me is disaster particularly for the vulnerable
I agree with your comments but my point was the companies can't cope with the staff available for this unprecedented event.
 
It's total carnage in areas of the North East. Places without electricity and water for days.

I know places in Northumberland had structures like pylons damaged or destroyed. Kielder Water has lost hundreds of trees such was the strength of the wind.
 
Why doesn’t every sub station have a plug in point for a portable generator (the big Agrekko type). Would get a lot of people up and running quickly at least on a temporary basis.

not expensive, just an extra cubicle on the switchboard.
In rural areas it's the distribution from substations to homes that suffers the damage. Final distribution, at 240V, is generally from a pole mounted transformer at the end of the line. This sat outside the house for over a week in 2012 after an ice storm brought down lines and poles. Similar generators were positioned at every farm/house in the immediate local area so there were probably a dozen or so.

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