Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Storms leave thousands without power

UK storms: Thousands of homes without power

Fallen tree and police car Trees and other debris have smashed into power lines bringing them down

Thousands of homes are without power after strong winds and rain hit the south west of England and Wales.

The Met Office said gusts of up to 70mph and 20mm of rain would spread from the south west to south-west Wales and eastern Northern Ireland overnight.

Western Power Distribution said about 14,000 homes in south-west England and 1,300 in Wales were facing power cuts.

Rail services have also been disrupted, with all lines between Exeter St Davids and Penzance closed.

Earlier, the Prince of Wales met residents in the flood-hit Somerset Levels where thousands of hectares of land remain under water and whole villages have been cut off for weeks.

Fix faults

Western Power Distribution said there had been high voltage faults due to debris being blown around in Devon and Cornwall.

The company said it had teams of engineers working to fix the faults through the night, and it would also switch circuits to work around individual faults.

Many customers in west, south and mid Wales were also without power, it added.

Phil Davies, network service managers for the company, said: "The problem we get when we get high winds like this is wind-borne material coming into contact with our overhead lines and causing short-circuits and causing the conductors to fall."

In Wales, a number of main roads have been closed by fallen trees or flooding.

Trees blocked the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road at Hirwaun, the A484 at Carmarthen and the A476 at Ffairfach in Carmarthenshire. The A484 has been blocked by flooding at Cenarth in Carmarthenshire.

Firefighters have also been called out to deal with dangerous structures. There have been two incidents in the Tenby area of Pembrokeshire with roofing being blown off buildings. In Caerphilly, the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said a chimney was blown from a house.

A river rescue was also under way in Blackwood, Caerphilly.

Large waves on the Cornwall coast Cornwall is one of the worst affected areas where large waves have battered the coast
Fallen tree Fallen trees have caused havoc in many areas as high winds hit

First Great Western said train services between Exeter St Davids and Penzance were suspended due to the weather conditions in the Devon and Cornwall area. It said services would resume from about 09:30 GMT at the earliest.

Southeastern said Network Rail had put a 40mph speed restriction in place across parts of its network between 23:00 GMT and Wednesday evening.

South West Trains said it may be necessary to impose a speed restriction of 50mph on certain routes between 10:00 and 19:00 on Wednesday.

Winds of up to 92mph (148km/h) have been reported in the Isles of Scilly.

In the space of just one hour, Devon and Cornwall Police received at least 70 calls about fallen trees.

'Listen and act'

The government's emergency committee Cobra held another meeting on the latest flooding situation on Tuesday evening, chaired by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "With heavy rain predicted this week, the environment secretary has chaired a further meeting of Cobra to ensure that everything that can be done is being done.

"All requests for assistance have been met and we will continue to work closely with local authorities. It is vital that people listen and act on any advice from the Environment Agency and the emergency services."

The Met Office has an amber severe weather warning - meaning "be prepared" - for wind for southern England on Wednesday, as well as warnings for wind and rain for other parts of the UK.

The Environment Agency has four severe flood warnings in place - meaning "danger to life" - in South Cornwall, Weymouth, West Bay in Dorset, and Lyme Regis.

It also has about 60 flood warnings and more than 200 flood alerts in England and Wales.

A spokesman said: "Very strong winds and high waves are expected along the Dorset coast overnight and on Wednesday morning."

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has one flood warning for Kirkcaldy in Fife, and several flood alerts.

BBC weather presenter Matt Taylor said there would be more stormy weather on Wednesday.

"There will be another bout of potentially damaging winds into the morning rush-hour," he said.

Prince Charles travelled to the flood-hit village of Muchelney by boat

Speaking during his visit to Somerset, Prince Charles said: "There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something. The tragedy is that nothing happened for so long."

Residents have expressed anger at the pace at which the Environment Agency and the government have responded.

Many residents have said there has been a slow response from the authorities to the flooding, which has affected many parts of the Somerset Levels since the end of December.

Some have also suggested that a lack of river dredging by the Environment Agency could have exacerbated the scale of the flooding.

Prince Charles also said during his visit that he "feels very sorry for all the people affected by the flooding".

In Cornwall, the local authority estimated storms had caused more than £4m of damage across the county in the past month .

The Met Office said another band of rain was expected to arrive from the south on Thursday.

Somerset Levels flood map

Are you in the flood-affected areas? Have you been left without power? Send us your experiences using the form below.

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