Storm Goretti

[KenAdams]

Anyone preparing for a lot of snow tomorrow?

We're in Leicestershire and it looks like we're due quite a bit.

Yup, total blackspot where we are. And we are hardly isolated.

Loss of power anywhere in the network would cause loss of service.

The old telephone exchanges used to have banks of rechargeable batteries to keep the system running in the event of loss of power. Electronic equipment is now widely distributed in little cabins and street cabinets, and AFAIK the public service is less resilient.

When I worked in utilities, off-site engineers were issued with mobile phones. However it became apparent that in a major incident, the mobile network quickly became overloaded, and would stop working if power was lost. So Private Mobile Radios were reissued and fitted in vans.

Still over 10,000 homes without power. Majority of these have been since Thursday.

Plus water supply issues.

Yup, my business partner and wife have been round tonight for a hot meal and showers plus to charge everything .

They’ve been without power since Thursday and are currently being told Tuesday night for it to be back on.

I’ve just watched a video by SWW showing how the mains water pipes were broken by trees falling.

Hats off to all the people trying to clear up this chaos - this is not going to be a quick fix. The local infrastructure has been massively affected and weak spots have been highlighted. Business partner is in a mobile black spot, with no power they have no WiFi annd they don’t have a landline - not unusual at all but they’d be stuffed in an emergency!

DS still doesn't have any power and has now been told midnight tonight. They keep pushing it back. He works from home and can't do so without WiFi. He found a cafe to work from on Friday but that's obviously not ideal.

Had the satisfaction of going to visit a good friend yesterday while her electricity was being restored. She has been managing OK with a gas hob and woodburner, but the situation in her fridge freezer is pretty dire. She's also very unwell.

We found the lane blocked by a Western Power Distribution van with a cherry picker and two orange men, took her dog for a walk leaving her in 19th century gloom, and came back to find her lights blazing and the 21st century back, yay!

It was the first time I'd taken my normal route out of my village, and it was profoundly shocking. So many places where trees have come down and a way has been roughly chainsawed so you can just about squeeze through (the buses can't, either public or school), crushing telegraph poles and leaving festoons of dangling power lines (hopefully not live any more eh 😬)

This is just one of the places, and not the worst. It's only just now revisiting the photos that I notice the weird vertical "splinter" sheared off the telegraph pole on the right!

The lasting legacy of this storm will be the terrible loss of trees.

It is scary to see trees that have stood for so long falling like matchsticks. It has been the same in previous storms in our area. I was shocked to walk through our local forest, where you would think trees shelter each other and see the biggest trees all down in rows.
We have solar panels and batteries so if the power goes off we can run the fridge, lights and the odd oil filled radiator for a few days. We wouldn’t last as long as the power has been out for many this time, again scary.