Clean-up and recovery efforts are under way across parts of the UK after Storm Boero caused flooding, property damage and widespread power cuts. The Energy Networks Association (ENA) said about 90,000 homes remained without electricity on Monday, while two men were killed by falling trees during Sunday’s storm.
One of the men was in his 20s and died in north London. The other was 60 and died in Dumfries and Galloway.
Further wind warnings issued
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for strong winds covering all of England and Wales, the west coast of Scotland and eastern Northern Ireland from 6pm on Monday until 3am on Tuesday.
A separate yellow warning will be reinstated for northern Scotland from 3am.
Boero is the second storm to affect parts of the UK in recent days, following Storm Austin, which caused a similar level of disruption.
Power restoration hampered by weather
ENA chief executive Leo Slade described it as a “difficult weekend”. He said efforts to reconnect some facilities had been delayed by weather conditions, including sustained winds of 50 to 85 miles per hour in parts of Scotland and northern England.
“Until the weather system passes, we cannot safely call in technicians to replace poles or restore power lines, so today will be a period of intense activity to get technicians to the scene,” Mr Slade told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Slade said the UK’s electricity grid was highly resilient and that money had been spent preparing for this type of situation. However, he said there needed to be a debate about how much additional investment was required to mitigate the effects of further storms linked to climate change.
Businesses affected by outages
Power cuts caused by Storm Boero have also affected homeowners and local businesses.
Marcus Reid, operations director at home-fragrance maker Wax Lyrical, said the company’s factory and store in Lindall, Cumbria, would remain without power until Tuesday evening.
Speaking to the Today show, he said the company had been forced to turn away employees and customers.
“Losing two days of manufacturing and distribution would be a real disruption,” he said, adding that the timing was particularly difficult because it was “the busiest time of the year” for the business in the run-up to Christmas.
“This is probably the worst situation I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. We had an occasional problem with a power outage over the weekend, but it was over within 12 hours. This is the first time something like this has happened and it’s very serious.”
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
