Northern Powergrid warn Northumberland residents that outages could continue until tomorrow

The storm 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.

Northern Powergrid said today (Monday) that 16,000 households were still without power, but most of these should be reconnected by the end of the day.

Almost all of these households are in Northumberland and County Durham.

The company added it would provide updates on estimated restoration times and how many customers would be without power after today, as the the impact of Storm Corrie becomes clearer.

The grid is working with its partners to support the communities affected – including making financial support available for people still without supply today to get a hot meal and, where it is needed, help to cover the cost of alternative accommodation.

However, the statement went on to say that damage from Malik was “not as severe” as that caused by Storm Arwen.

It added: “We are going to do everything we can to reconnect everyone today and we will keep people posted. Our message to our customers is that it is likely that we won’t be able to restore a relatively small proportion tonight, but at this stage we don’t know which ones, if any, will still be off tomorrow morning.”

Andy Bilclough, director of field operations, added: “Our team put in another fantastic performance yesterday (Sunday) in extremely challenging circumstances. We still have a lot to do, but we have a large team out there now in what are currently perfect conditions for the kind of work we do.

"Storm Corrie is a concern, but we’re going to get as much done as we can today for as long as it is safe to do so”.