ENGINEERS and linesmen from Northern Powergrid are working to restore power in the early hours for the remaining 50 customers in Northumberland affected by the lightning storms that struck parts of the North-East today.

Rod Gardner, Northern Powergrid’s head of network operations, said: “The vast majority of our 38,000 customers affected by today’s storms across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and Teesside had their power back on by lunchtime. Our people have worked throughout the day, and into the night, to get their lights back on.

“We’ve had extra advisors in our local contact centre providing support and information to our customers. Our online power cut map and social media updates have also helped us keep customers continually updated so they could make arrangements, where possible, that would help reduce the impact of the power cut on them.

“We’d like to thank our customers for their patience while we carried out the necessary emergency repairs to our network. We’d also like thank our employees for their professionalism and working into the early hours until all of our customers’ electricity supplies are restored.”