Lawrence Slade said Chloe storm weather left 90,000 customers without power on Monday morning as a major clean-up continued after Storm Austen and Storm Boelo. The Energy Networks Association chief said operators had restored power to about 700,000 customers over the weekend. More strong winds were still forecast for Tuesday.
Two men were killed by falling trees during the weekend storms. Richard Baines, the 60-year-old curator of Logan Botanic Garden near Port Logan, was named on Monday afternoon after being hit in Dumfries and Galloway.
Lawrence Slade on restored power
Slade told Radio 4’s Today programme: “It certainly was a tough one. One of the problems was how quickly Boelo followed after Austen.” He also said: “Until that weather system passes we can’t safely get engineers out to replace poles, to get wires back up etc”.
The Energy Networks Association later said the number of customers without power had fallen to 39,000. That left the restoration work still incomplete after a weekend that saw flooding, travel disruption and widespread outages across parts of Britain and Scotland.
Met Office Tuesday warnings
The Met Office issued two yellow weather warnings for more strong winds on Monday. One covered western coastal areas from Cornwall up to south-west Scotland from 6pm until 3am on Tuesday, with gusts of up to 65mph and heavy rain possible.
The second warning ran from 3am to 9pm on Tuesday and covered most of Scotland. Forecasters said winds of 50-60mph were likely to be quite widespread, with gusts up to 70mph possible in the far north of Scotland. The Met Office warned of possible travel cancellations, road closures and more power cuts.
Robyn Cryans and flooding
Flooding hit several parts of Scotland, including Largs, where footage showed flood water cascading through the town centre. Robyn Cryans, who was on holiday in Cyprus, woke to pictures from a neighbour showing her Nissan Micra Sport submerged at home in Renfrew.
“It is very upsetting, a bit stressful,” she said. “It was unexpected considering we’ve got a £10m flood barrier literally just down the road which is supposed to activate if the Clyde bursts its banks.”
The next stretch of disruption now depends on how much of the Tuesday wind warning band is felt across exposed coastal areas and Scotland, where crews still face unsafe conditions until the weather system passes.
