Up to 1,800 households across North East still without power after storm damage

Storm Malik brought winds of up to 90mph to the North East, causing chaos on the roads, shutting the Tyne and Wear Metro and cutting power supplies to almost 80,000 people, mostly in Northumberland and County Durham.

The storm – which came less than three months after Storm Arwen wreaked havoc around the North East – led the Emergency Planning Strategic Co-ordination Groups (SCG) for County Durham and Darlington to declare a major incident.

Now, power bosses say that 78,000 of these households have got their power back with the grid making “good progress” in restoring the remaining 1,800 customers who are still without power across Northumberland, County Durham and Tyne & Wear.

A statement from Northern Powergrid on Monday states that reconnection efforts were impacted by Storm Corrie, which caused 17,000 interruptions – but 16,000 of those have been restored and as that work is complete, more resources are being released to complete the work from Storm Malik.

The grid vowed to work into the night to restore energy to those still without but admitted “there is a chance” that a small number will run into Tuesday.

Louise Lowes, Head of Customer Service, said: “We feel we have been able to do a better job for our customers by communicating differently in this storm response. We recognise that it is frustrating not to be given an exact estimate of when the lights will come back on, but in these circumstances the reality is that we are unable to be as precise as we would be under normal circumstances. As we near the end of this event, our focus remains solely on getting the lights back on for the customers who have waited the longest and supporting them as much as we can. Our attention will turn to the compensation process once we have reconnected all customers.”