HUNDREDS of houses across County Durham and Darlington are still without power after storms in quick succession battered the region - leaving homeowners without power, trees felled and property damaged.
The North East was hit by Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin over the last seven days when adverse weather, including torrential rain, high winds and snow patches covering certain areas.
At its peak, 20,000 Northern Powergrid customers were left without power - with the company battling to restore electricity and heating to as many houses as possible.
Read more: Storm Franklin: New North East weather warning warns of “danger to life”
Currently, just over 350 houses in County Durham and Darlington remain without power, caused by the recent storms.
Those living in DL2 3QS, TS21 and small patches of DL1 and DL3 postcodes have been left in darkness since the early hours of this morning (February 21), according to the Northern Powergrid outage map.
Read more: Train station flooded as Northern issues DO NOT TRAVEL warning in the North East
It's expected that power will be recconected to the affected properties by 3pm this afternoon, per the Powergrid estimates, but this could vary depending on the progress of engineers.
Here's Northern Powergrid's outage map and estimates of when the power will be restored:
Andy Bilclough, director of field operations at Northern Powergrid, said: “We got off to a good start this morning. Our target is to get everyone back on today. We’re not yet at a point where that is guaranteed – in these situations, there is always the potential for unwelcome surprises.
"But we are already confident that if we don’t get everyone back, only a few customers will have to wait until tomorrow. I can tell you we will be doing everything we can to get done today.
"Our welfare support teams are mobilised to help those customers who are still without power. Our customer support vehicles have been deployed and we have food vans out in the community.
Read more: Storm Franklin: Pictures show flooding in Ripon and Masham
"We are continuing to work closely with our local resilience partners and are being guided by them as to where the support is most needed."
Louise Lowes, head of customer services at Northern Powergrid, added: “We’ve made some strong progress which is great news for the 98% of the customers who are back on supply, but we know that’s no real comfort to the last one or two percent particularly if they are facing a second evening without power.
"Andy and his team know where the risks of delay are, so I’ve got facilities arranged this evening to make sure that any customers who lost supply yesterday and are still without power into this evening can get a good meal and be properly looked after.”
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