THREE schools are unable to reopen for the third day after Storm Arwen left a trail of devastation and knocked power out for thousands.

The schools across County Durham have remained shut today (Wednesday) due to a lack of power, heating or telephone connection.

Thousands are still without power days after the storm first hit, causing damage and disruption right across the region.

Read more: Bishop Auckland still left without power after Storm Arwen chaos

In a list published by Durham County Council, the following schools were listed as remaining closed until later this week.

Rookhope Primary School 

The school will close on Monday (All day) and re-open on Thursday (Morning).

Reason for closure: we have no electricity, heating or telephone line.

Wearhead Primary School

The school will close on Monday (All day) and re-open on Thursday (Morning).

Reason for closure: due to a powercut following Storm Arwen. Currently we have no heating or electricity and are unsure when power will be restored.

Woodland Primary School 

The school will close on Wednesday (All day) and re-open on Thursday (Morning).

Reason for closure: No power or heating.

What Northern Powergrid has said

According to their outage map, thousands of premises remain without power as of Wednesday morning.

Rod Gardner, Northern Powergrid’s Major Incident Manager, 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 the vast majority of our remaining work is now in Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas.

“We have some large sections of overhead line that will need to be rebuilt in order to return supplies back to normal. We have three helicopters in the sky today which continue to be invaluable in patrolling the long length of overhead line in order 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 requires a major work or rebuild. 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.” 

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