Durham County Council has issued a press release updating on Storm Corrie, expected to hit the North East later today. Please see below for details:
The response to the storm continues, with one eye on preparations for Storm Corrie arriving in the region today. The current Yellow Weather Warning for Storm Malik expired at 18:00 last night. Temperatures are forecast to dip overnight and our winter maintenance teams will be out gritting as temperatures dip to around 0 degrees.
On Sunday we see the arrival of Storm Corrie. A Yellow Weather Warning is in place for this with winds expected to pick up from around lunchtime and peaking overnight in to Monday morning – winds of up to 60mph are forecast.
Yesterday Northern Powergrid recorded more than 62,000 customers who have been affected by Storm Malik, across Durham and Northumberland, although Northumberland appears to be more affected than County Durham. Northern Powergrid reinstated supply to around 32,000 customers up to 18:00, leaving potentially 30,000 customers without power – with around 8,000 of these in County Durham according to their data.
In response to this incident, the Local Resilience Forum have this afternoon declared a Major Incident.
DCC are currently working with partners for the identification of vulnerable persons who may require assistance. We are deploying staff across the county this evening to make contact with vulnerable households. This is an ongoing process as the situation develops and we are receiving hourly updates from Northern Powergrid in terms of the households still affected.
Teams from across the council have been and continue to respond to the incident. Our Clean and Green are responding to numerous calls for downed trees – with nearly 200 incidents reported. There are currently two roads closed due to storm damage and they will remain closed overnight. Our Dangerous Structures Team have been responding to multiple calls and making assessments of buildings where they can. All teams are working together to respond including to a recent issue around a care home without power. Actions for this are being supported by Northern Powergrid.
CDDFRS have now resumed normal service and stood down additional staff ahead of Sunday. CDDFRS have offered support to partners for work with vulnerable persons and are will therefore be supporting our Wardens in making contact with vulnerable residents across this evening and into tomorrow.
Durham Constabulary have returned to a normal state of response, however they have retained some additional staff to support community activities who are experiencing ongoing power outages.
Resources continue to be deployed across the county to continue the clean-up process and to support those still without power.
Public communications will be going out from all partners of the LRF as required.
We would like to thank all of you who have made referrals of incident information to be actioned. This is has all been passed on to the appropriate team to be actioned.
Any notification of incidents should be referred to the Northern Powergrid on 105 and to the DCC out of hours on 03000 261000
Additional contact details can be found on yesterday’s post at: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2022/01/storm-malik.html
