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Turns out still some streets in Alnwick still with no electric. Schools, pubs and cafes are offering out services including showers.
Callander - both schools closed, emergency shelter in the primary, no power. Friends being told it might be midweek before power is back on.
These conifers in Glen Ogle were snapped in half by 100+ mph winds from Storm Friedhelm (or Hurricane Bawbag) in December 2011
We stayed in Killin - I was at work on Loch Tay south shore. We gathered all staff in the main building and hunkered down. I have never heard wind like it. We then watched skittles as the big trees at work came down outside the window. And by big, some were 1.5m across the trunk. It was 20 seconds from standing to 18 trees down, in one gust.
IIRC, it wasn't highest windspeed but it was the sustained 100mph wind that was the factor that day.
A few weeks later:
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/7020/6716643119_33de98bfa3_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/7020/6716643119_33de98bfa3_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/bewxZH ]DSCN0015[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_outandabout/ ]Matt Robinson[/url], on Flickr
It’s been on the news for days, with the normal drama, then it went to yellow and then red yesterday morning. Loads of reports saying do not travel, keep away from the sea and stay at home. You’ve done exceptionally well to miss it.
I don’t know. A lot of people simply don’t watch TV or listen to radio, and there’s not a lot else in the way of reliable local news. The local rags are mainly junk and covid has dominated national newspaper headlines.
Just going back to the comments about why people didn't pay attention to the weather..
Is it maybe because there are now regular weather warnings about weather that is just wet and windy - amber and yellow warnings, and fairly innocuous storms are named. Maybe people aren't paying attention to the stuff they should notice because weather forecasts are so regularly doom-laden? A sort of warning fatigue, or maybe crying wolf?
Just back in Sweden from Rothbury area. Driving out was terrible. Roads were sheet ice and just managed to get out via Newton on the moor. Sliding into the verge and slipping all over the place. Amazed I got to Edinburgh. Power and mobile signal came back on Sunday at 11.30. Spent two days having whiskey parties by candlelight with the family. House roof full of holes and trees down everywhere. Water out so needed to fetch water for the cows with a loader bucket.
Maybe people aren’t paying attention to the stuff they should notice because weather forecasts are so regularly doom-laden? A sort of warning fatigue, or maybe crying wolf?
Yeah I believe that probably contributes to it.
@Geda roads were interesting with the frozen snow.
Know of plenty of folk still with no power/water/phones since Friday night and have a steady cycle of washing/charging things/etc for them at ours currently. I suspect that several will be off a while yet judging by the numbers affected. At least if you've got a woodburner or calor gas you can get a hot water bottle filled and cook something but there are some people with neither - pretty tedious for them no doubt, and worse for old folk and those with young kids.
Yeah still loads of villages and towns off line, could be a few days yet for them.
Apparently well over 20,000 without power in Scotland still, some remote places being told end of the week...
Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, half the village unaffected, half without power. We were without for about 42 hours. Others are still without. Comms from Northern Powergrid were sketchy. At pretty much the same time on a snowy, frigid but still Sunday afternoob...I was chatting to one of the many guys working away up cherry pickers, diggers etc... while a neighbour was speaking to someone at Northern Powergrid about when the power was due back on. She was told that; as it still so windy, the engineers couldn't start work so please be patient.....they had been busy for the past 5 hours.The wind had died down many hours earlier.
Apparently well over 20,000 without power in Scotland still, some remote places being told end of the week…
id believe that - lotta remote houses round here out.
MY generator is out with friends and so is my camping stove and we have the SIL and dog living with us.
These companies are not really set up to respond to events like this though, are they? bills would be even higher than they are now if we had these guys sitting around for the 350 odd days a year that they wouldn't be required.
its all hands on deck family member is Risk assessment for renewables and being drafted into distribution -
like wise a buddy is project management for substation replacement - hes been doing 18 hour days on surveying lines ( read walking the lines)
We had a lad walking the lines near us on saturday who clearly was used to driving a desk.
They are rediverting resource as far as Risk lets them to get everyone back going from what i can see.
Force 7/30 kt winds forecast for tomorrow around here.
That will probably finish off some of the already damaged chimneys and roofs.
Power restored 4.30 pm yesterday (Monday) so all’s well etc.
Watched the guys in the cherry picker across the moorland from us as I was walking the dog, and headed home in eager anticipation.
These companies are not really set up to respond to events like this though, are they? bills would be even higher than they are now if we had these guys sitting around for the 350 odd days a year that they wouldn’t be required.
I work for the Tree Cutting Department for SSEN, SSEN delivers the power to the door in the Northern part of Scotland, including Moray and Aberdeenshire.
Whenever there is a storm event the business puts people across the organisation on standby, positioning resources in the locations likely to be affected. This has taken place numerous times each storm season since I joined the business in 2016 and thankfully these events have been very benign.
Storm Arwen has been off the scale. Some of the SSEN tree cutters have been in the forestry industry for many, many years and this the worst event they have seen for the last 10 years or so. Teams have travelled up from SSE in the South and we have shifted tree cutters over from Argyle and up from Tayside.
So yes, SSE is set up to respond to events like this, however due to the sheer scale of the event it's taking time to for the teams to cut their way in through downed forests to access the power lines, clear the trees off of the power lines and in many cases rebuild the power lines.
just getting to the lines is a challenge.
we are not talking the odd downed tree round here - we are talking square kilometers of trees clear felled and in a tangled mess.
I work for the Tree Cutting Department for SSEN
Any jobs going? 🙂
One of our local forests. Just out of shot is the Beauly Denny line....
I work for the Tree Cutting Department for SSEN
Any jobs going? 🙂
Keep an eye on this page. No jobs in Scotland on there at the moment but they do appear frequently. PM me if you are interested.
we are not talking the odd downed tree round here – we are talking square kilometers of trees clear felled and in a tangled mess.
Yup, I was driving through entire woods gone strewn across power lines and the roads. Then the poles of power lines themselves snapped clean through, one after another.
@beamers - thanks to you and your colleagues for helping get the power back on. People don't realise how much effort goes into the provision of all of our utilities.
Re: your comment:
Storm Arwen has been off the scale. Some of the SSEN tree cutters have been in the forestry industry for many, many years and this the worst event they have seen for the last 10 years or so.
I'm sure that the guys are correct re: the last 10 yrs. However Arwen isn't off the scale, it's very much towards the lower end of the scale in terms of impact and widespread damage.
Arwen is essentially a localised but very disruptive storm in the context of European windstorms. The disruption has been to transport and utility infrastructures but thankfully there has not been too much damage to buildings.
We tend to have several large windstorms in most years across western Europe but in the last 10-15 years we've been quite lucky in that these damaging storms have occurred in places where few people live, so the general public tend to forget that we frequently get them. (I'm looking at this from a European view as these storm systems are massive and don't stop at national borders).
Arwen is small compared to the great storm of 1987 (87J is it's meteo name) where it felled millions of trees in the UK & France. When Storm Erwin hit Sweden in 2005 it caused a loss of 70-80 million cubic metres of trees..that's a lot of trees!!!
Why am I saying this?? .... well it's back to the comments above and my comments earlier on Covid. In the UK we are poor at communicating and understanding risk, as a society we ignore important stuff .......... like the weather forecast 🤦♂️
I’m sure that the guys are correct re: the last 10 yrs. However Arwen isn’t off the scale, it’s very much towards the lower end of the scale in terms of impact and widespread damage.
The scale I'm talking about is the number of supply faults and the time its taking to get the power back on:
^^ The number in each blue circle represents the number of faults in that area, if you zoom in then you see each individual one, like the red icons. 4th day of the response and there are still 286 faults, not all tree related, or storm related, but most will be.
More info on SSEN Powertrack
The disruption has been to transport and utility infrastructures but thankfully there has not been too much damage to buildings.
Are you being serious?
I’m sure that the guys are correct re: the last 10 yrs. However Arwen isn’t off the scale, it’s very much towards the lower end of the scale in terms of impact and widespread damage.
The reason there is less damage, is that it hit some of the most empty parts of the UK. Where it has hit villages, there is massive damage to that village. Seahouses, Beadnell and Bamburgh have took massive damage, hardly any property untouched. The ones with roof damage, may get worse as there are strong winds coming tomorrow, so the already weakened structure will probably fail.
If powerlines go down in an urban environment, then it's a relative easy fix.
When the powerlines are on a remote hill side, with blocked access and stuck under fallen trees, then it's a lot more difficult.
The problem was surely the wind direction? We've had years to knock over the trees near power lines etc. from strong westerlies. A big northerly is going to knock over a whole new set of trees not previously problematic.
Possibly partially that but 98mph wind hasn’t been recorded around here before so it would only be a partial contribution.
The reason there is less damage, is that it hit some of the most empty parts of the UK.
See also Storm Bawbag - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Bawbag
Arwen does seem to have been a beast, a combination of strength and wind direction. The impact and clear up is going to take months for infrastructure, years for forests.
As ever, the northern and less populous areas get less news coverage.
Can you imagine if this was Cambridgeshire and North London, the BBC would have multiple presenters out and rolling live newsfeeds...
The problem was surely the wind direction?
Very much this.
Its also worth noting that we don't routinely remove trees which are within falling distance of the network. We maintain them so that they don't grow into the vicinity zone (0.5m for some LV up to 3.5m for 132kV which is the big stuff on the steel towers).
Keeping them out of the vicinity zone means that they can be cut, by our tree cutters, safely and without the power needing to be turned off.
Removing all of the trees within falling distance would be a huge job, and not something that a lot of landowners would agree to anyway.
Having said that Storm Arwen has removed quite a few of those trees for us!
I feel your pain Drac - I'm a bit south of you and we've got no power but at least we're accessible and most stuff round here does have power. The chainsaw has been busy though. Must be harsh for people in more remote places (I always tell people we live on the edge of nowhere, middle of nowhere is about 30 miles west of us 😉 ). Good luck supporting them you're all doing a grand job!
On that note what is it with people getting on the case of the power companies on FB etc. ? As if they have 1000s of people just sitting around in pickups ready to go all year round FFS.
wind direction is a large factor, so are antecedant conditions, i.e. what went on beforehand - if the soil is saturated, trees in leaf etc.
For an individual who's house is badly damaged it's a disaster but when you look at the wider picture at a national level we got of lightly. Homeowners have insurance and they'll fix the houses (eventually).
If Arwen had a slightly different track it could have been a lot worse at a national level, there was almost coastal flooding/storm surge on the east coast caused by the wind, again this could of been worse.
On that note what is it with people getting on the case of the power companies on FB etc. ? As if they have 1000s of people just sitting around in pickups ready to go all year round FFS.
I have a local FB page where someone properly kicked off about it - until someone else pointed out that the process involved their son, chainsaws, a Landrover, wandering around dark hillsides in appalling weather, climbing over the fallen trees aware that there may be live power lines hidden, then cleaning up the mess, installing new cables/poles/insulators etc and connecting it all back up again physically, on the ground... The initial post about a 4 hour power loss was quickly deleted.
I do think some folk have no idea how such infrastructure works or what it takes to keep it working.
I feel your pain Drac – I’m a bit south of you and we’ve got no power but at least we’re accessible and most stuff round here does have power.
I’m fortunate as Alnwick has kept power most of the time, still not odd street off, I’ve also had no property damage or at least what I know of. I’ve not actually had a chance for a proper check with being nights. Lots have though including colleagues who got home 17 hours after leaving work to find their house had no roof. There’s masses of property damage from what I seen and that was just in the headlights as there was no power.
Good luck supporting them you’re all doing a grand job!
Cheers but it is literally my job. The smile on staff’s faces as I gave them a hot drink was worth it, it was like gave them a million pounds.
For an individual who’s house is badly damaged it’s a disaster but when you look at the wider picture at a national level we got of lightly. Homeowners have insurance and they’ll fix the houses (eventually).
We really didn’t I’m not sure your understanding just how much damage there has been.
Can you imagine if this was Cambridgeshire and North London, the BBC would have multiple presenters out and rolling live newsfeeds…
This is always brought up, people after the floods down south moaning that no-one would care if it flooded up north, then it flooded up north and there was loads of coverage.
then it flooded up north
Todmorden, all things relative, aint that far north...
😜
You must be exhausted @beamers . I’ll keep an eye out for utility felling jobs. I’d love to move to Scotland when the time is right, for now I’ll keep eyes peeled locally (though that advertised hourly rate isn’t great!)
Glasgow's been pretty clear, a bit of rain is all.
Far better than being stuck in a pub for three days with an Oasis tribute band. That must have been pretty harrowing.
As ever, the northern and less populous areas get less news coverage.
Can you imagine if this was Cambridgeshire and North London, the BBC would have multiple presenters out and rolling live newsfeeds…
Why is this supprising? Something that effects more people and is easier to access get more news coverage. It's not a conspiracy. There has still been pretty good new coverage from what I have seen / heard (I don't wantch TV so can't comment on that) but is been a long way from ignored.
@houns - The hourly rate isn't great, however there's a host of benefits that come with it, shares, discount schemes etc etc. Also, all kit and equipment, vehicles and fuel are provided, along with training as required. Some guys get their heads turned by the hourly rate they can earn working for contractors, however in most cases they have to pay for / provide all of the above themselves. Plus the amount of work can be inconsistent.
Our guys work throughout the year and all they have to provide themselves are their undercrackers.
(I'm an office drone by the way, providing admin support / co-ordination to the field staff. I'd more than likely end up as a casualty if I started wielding a chainsaw in anger!)
Ah yes the thought of my own truck and kit is appealing!
^^^ Pretty close @ElShalimo:
I'm just jealous. I can't be trusted with scissors never mind a chainsaw
Can you imagine if this was Cambridgeshire and North London, the BBC would have multiple presenters out and rolling live newsfeeds…
To be fair to the BBC I tweeted that I'd had a shrub blown over and they did send a news crew. They're also planning a 6 part documentary about it. Tom Hardy will be cast as the Potato Vine and Stephen Fry will be doing the voice over. They've asked me not to post any photos as southern viewers would find it too distressing without the five part build up to the traumatic event.
The great thing about chainsawing is it's like bikes. You can pick a brand/ cc/bar size and be a dick about it.
Huskys for the win do I see @beamers? Wait... Nope. One of each. How do you cope?