NORTHERN Powergrid has updated customers in the North East waiting to be reconnected to the electricity network by revealing that they’ve managed to deal with 90 per cent of homes impacted by Storm Arwen. 

Since Friday evening, close to 240,000 houses in County Durham, North Yorkshire and the North East have been without power after extreme weather conditions brought in by Storm Arwen destroyed power cables and electricity supplies. 

In the aftermath of the crisis situation – Northern Powergrid has continued to work to get power back up and running for customers and have now revealed that they’ve restored power to 220,000 of the 240,000 homes and businesses impacted.

READ MORE Storm Arwen: Northern Powergrid map shows when North East homes will get power

Using more than 100 engineers and 2,000 people behind the scenes, the energy company also announced today that they will “endeavour” to reconnect the remaining 20,000 houses currently offline.   

Rod Gardner, Northern Powergrid’s major incident manager, has said that his priority remains in County Durham and Tyne & Wear, but rebuilding overhead lines might be the only option in returning electricity to certain properties.

He said: “All of our teams are continuing to work extremely hard to restore power to our customers. We still have some work to do in the North and West Yorkshire areas, but most of our remaining work is now in Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas.

The Northern Echo: Storm Arwen left a whirlwind of damage across the region, including felling trees, knocking down walls and damaging property.Storm Arwen left a whirlwind of damage across the region, including felling trees, knocking down walls and damaging property.

“We have some large sections of overhead line that will need to be rebuilt to return supplies to normal. 

"We have three helicopters in the sky today, which continue to be invaluable in patrolling the long length of overhead line to locate the damage and coordinate repairs.

“We have significant damage to extensive sections of overhead line in the Wear valley, around Eastgate and beyond that feeds around 2,000 homes and businesses that require a major work or rebuild. 

The Northern Echo: Another scene of devastation from across County Durham during Storm Arwen.Another scene of devastation from across County Durham during Storm Arwen.

"We have set up a dedicated engineering resource and a front-line customer welfare task force as well as coordinating with local authorities and community partners in the area to assist our response.

“We fully understand and appreciate peoples’ growing frustrations, and we are very sorry for the continued impact to our customers’ lives, and we thank them for their continued patience and understanding.” 

Northern Powergrid has also confirmed that its customer support vehicles continue to be in communities, supporting customers with access to hot water, drinks, mobile phone charging and winter warmer packs. 

READ MORE Storm Arwen aftermath dealt with by agencies

During the aftermath of Storm Arwen, Northern Powergrid has set up a dedicated email address and team for customers to provide their most up-to-date contact details to subscribe to their update service. Email StormArwen@NorthernPowergrid.com with full name, address and mobile telephone number. 

Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can also follow our dedicated County Durham Facebook page for all the latest in the area by clicking here.

For all the top news updates from right across the region straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.

Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on newsdesk@nne.co.uk or contact 01325 505054