Work continues to reconnect homes in Aberdeenshire seven days after Storm Arwen
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Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has made further progress in restoring power to customers affected by Storm Arwen.
Its teams have been working throughout Friday and where safe continued to work through the night to restore power to as many customers as possible.
A further 650 customers were reconnected throughout the course of Friday, with power now restored to over 130,000 customers in total since the start of the storm.
At 9pm on Friday evening, approximately 950 customers were still without power.
The majority of these are either single properties or small rural groups of homes.
Mark Rough, Director of Operations, said:“Our teams made really good progress throughout Friday, and we are expecting to make similar progress overnight.
"Currently we are estimating that on Saturday morning we will have around 500 customers without power, and we will reconnect them throughout the day.
“Once again I’d like thank our customers for their continued patience and apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused by loss of their power.
"For anyone still off supply, we would encourage them to call 105 and our teams will look to provide whatever support is required.”
Reflecting on the last seven days Jim Savege, chief executive of Aberdeenshire Council said: "This has been a massively tough week for families and communities across Aberdeenshire.
"We have witnessed a truly amazing effort of support from communities, energy providers, partners, council teams and emergency services to make sure we keep people safe as the power comes back on across the region.
"I applaud the 800+ SSEN engineers who have battled through really difficult conditions and terrain to get us back on the grid and I know our communities appreciate those continuing efforts.
"At the heart of our decision-making is a group called the Local Resilience Partnership – that group is made up of police, councils, health, fire and rescue, power companies, met office and SEPA, the ambulance service, the Red Cross… the list goes on.
"We have met multiple times a day to share updates and awareness, provide mutual aid and support the people of Aberdeenshire in partnership.
"This is a painful time for those still without power, but until such time as that power is switched back on, the Partnership will be here to support residents alongside their very resilient communities.
"From the council perspective we have had 1000s of staff being redeployed on the ground since last Friday – and in many cases volunteering – to ensure our communities are safe, that they have food, water, heat and other resources they need.
"That action, together with the wonderful community support, has been phenomenal and they have achieved great things to support those affected.
"We are concerned that we will have people who are still without power this weekend, so we are all continuing to increase our resources within those impacted communities so we can provide them with welfare facilities and as much support as we can."
Aberdeenshire's list of resources and contacts can be found here
