All properties in Scotland left without electricity following Storm Éowyn have now been reconnected nearly a week after it swept in, power companies have said.
Almost 300,000 customers were affected after the storm battered the country on Friday, January 24, with gusts of up to 100mph causing significant damage to buildings, power cables and railways.
More than 206,000 SP Energy Networks customers across central and southern Scotland were among those affected and around 700 engineers were deployed across the network to carry out repairs.
The company said most were back on supply within the first 24 hours and the remaining properties were reconnected in the very early hours of Thursday, January 30 – six days after the storm.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution said late on Wednesday evening that all 92,000 of its customers whose supplies were interrupted had been reconnected.
The storm, which claimed the life of a 19-year-old man in East Ayrshire, caused significant damage to infrastructure on the rail network, which led to many route closures due to trees and debris blocking tracks, and damage to overhead lines.
Over 500 incidents were reported in Scotland alone. ScotRail’s Girvan to Stranraer route remained shut on Thursday, with Network Rail Scotland continuing work to clear it.
SP Energy Networks said the storm caused the worst damage the network has ever seen and repairs had been “complex and challenging”.
Its chief executive Nicola Connelly said: “This has been a truly colossal task, with our teams pulling out all the stops – and making use of every possible resource at our disposal as well as drafting in people and resources from across the country – with that singular aim of getting all our customers affected by the storm back on supply as quickly and safely as possible.
“It’s been complex and challenging, but our teams stayed focused and persevered until we achieved just that – helped massively by the patience, resilience and understanding of our customers.
“We know it’s been difficult and you were always at the heart of the tremendous team effort made right across our business, so thank-you for your support. For us though, the work continues, and our teams are out there – and will be for some time – completing permanent repairs across the network and fixing the last of the damage caused by Storm Eowyn.”
Customers without power for more than 48 hours are entitled to automatic compensation, with increased payments for those affected the most.
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Andy Smith, SSEN Distribution’s director of customer operations for the north of Scotland, said: “Eowyn was an exceptional storm which required an exceptional response from us.
“More than 1,000 people have been working hard since the storm first hit to reconnect homes and support customers, while a huge volume of network reconstruction has been done in challenging conditions.
“I want to say thank-you to everyone who’s played their part in this response, both from our own teams and also those of our contract partners and fellow network operators who came to support us.
“Now the restoration work’s drawn to a close, I’d particularly like to thank all 92,000 customers whose supplies were interrupted for their patience and understanding while we’ve worked to rebuild the network as safely and as quickly as we could.
“I remind those who lost power to look at the compensation that’s available and to make a claim for reimbursement if they qualify.”
The weather warnings in place during Storm Eowyn included a rare red “danger to life” alert between 10am and 5pm on Friday, which covered the central belt and Dumfries and Galloway, and stretched north on the west coast to Jura in Argyll and Bute.
Calum Carmichael, 19, from New Cumnock, East Ayrshire, died after his car was hit by a falling tree in nearby Mauchline at about 6.45am on Friday, before the red weather warning came into force.
He was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and died on Saturday, Police Scotland confirmed.
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