Residents have said they are “enraged” and “annoyed” after being left without power for days following Storm Malik
One man in County Durham said pensioners in his village were “suffering”, while another said “very few lessons had been learned” since Storm Arwen in November.
On Monday, 45,500 customers remained without power, with about 40,000 of them in northern Scotland after Storm Malik and Storm Corrie swept across the country over the weekend.
Northern Powergrid said it was dealing with about 200 incidents in County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland with about 7,000 customers without power.
Peter Isgate, who lives in Finchale Abbey Village, County Durham, said power had been off in the residential park since 10am on Saturday.
Northern Powergrid arrived on Monday morning.
The 65-year-old council worker told the PA news agency: “The average age is around 70, 75.
“Some people have got electric hobs so they’ve got no heating at all.
“Most of them have got dogs so the animals are suffering, they’re suffering.
“There’s been nobody down to see them.
“They’ve offered to bring coffee and hot food this morning.
“It’s not about food, you know.
“You can get a takeaway or something like that.
“It’s about heat and cold, old people feel it, and it just seems like they’re getting ignored.
“There’s some people haven’t got cars, they’re past the age of driving, so they’re basically stuck here in this cold weather.”
PR worker Bryn Hylton, 45, lives in a remote farmhouse in Knitsley, County Durham.
He said: “We’re quite philosophical about the power cut itself, these things happen.
“We live in a rural location and, while you don’t expect these things, you can be quite forgiving of them.
“What annoys me the most is just the lack of communication.”
Mr Hylton added: “It’s really the lack of information – and I get they’re trying to deal with 1000s of people, but I think it seems that very few lessons have been learned in the comms since Storm Arwen and it seems to be a case of history repeating itself.”
Stewart Sexton, 58, from Alnwick, Northumberland, lost power for 35 hours over the weekend, having previously been badly affected by Storm Arwen.
He said: “To be honest I’m enraged.
“This situation never happened before Arwen yet we did get storms.
“It’s all about a lack of maintenance of the infrastructure and no resilience plan from Northern Powergrid.
“We have had power cuts for 298 hours since November 26, just over two months.
“By any reckoning that must be unacceptable and it indicates that there is certainly something wrong with the infrastructure around our communities, while neighbouring larger villagers didn’t lose power at all.”
