Storm Amy: Tens of thousands of homes without power - including numerous outages in Moray - and major north A-roads blocked as gales continue to batter Scotland and Met Office amber weather warning remains in place
Tens of thousands of homes across Scotland are without power this morning after Storm Amy battered large swathes of the country - especially in the north and in the west.
More than 230 separate power cuts were being reported across Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks' (SSEN) part of the electrical grid alone at 5.30am on Saturday.
Some of these individual outages were affecting 2000+ homes on their own - meaning the total affected overall is highly likely to run into the tens of thousands of properties, although exact figures have not been released as yet.
In Moray alone, the number of properties impacted by power loss ran into four figures, with outages reported in a host of communities, including areas in or around Forres, Portgordon, Aberlour, Elgin and more.
Major travel disruption remains ongoing, with key A-roads closed in part of the region. Although the A96 was open at the time of writing, it had been hit by fallen trees earlier in the night, and roads elsewhere in the north have been badly hit - including the A82, A86 and A887 due to fallen trees.
Many other non-trunk roads were also affected, and motorists across the region have been advised to use care when travelling, or avoid their journey altogether while the storm continues to rage.
Travel disruption also continues away from the roads.
Numerous flights in/out of Inverness Airport were cancelled on Saturday morning, while ScotRail has advised that its closure of lines in the north is to continue into today due to the damage across the network. The Inverness-Aberdeen line is among those shut.
A ScotRail spokesperson said: "There has been significant disruption across the country, with strong winds blowing debris onto overhead lines, heavy persistent rain causing flooding in many areas, and trees falling onto the tracks in parts of the country."
No fewer than 830 separate train cancellations were being reported across the whole of Scotland on Saturday morning.
Rail chiefs warned that all affected routes will need to be thoroughly checked by Network Rail colleagues before services can resume today. These checks need to be carried out in daylight hours, and only when it is safe to do so.
Mark Ilderton, ScotRail Service Delivery Director, said: “We’re sorry to customers who have been impacted by the disruption caused by Storm Amy.
“Network Rail and ScotRail teams will work flat out to recover services as quickly as possible, but considerable disruption will continue through Saturday morning.
“We’re advising customers to check their journey before they travel via the ScotRail website, mobile app, or social media feeds.”
It is unclear how long the clean-up could take, but when Storm Floris stuck back in August, some lines did not fully reopen until two days later.