The work will be ongoing for sometime yet.

but it comes with its drawbacks and if they want to live in this kind of area people should probably be thinking about being a bit more self-sufficient? Not like a generator is a massive investment or difficult to source.

Unbelievable. That must be the most Southern thing ever posted.

A generator is a very expensive thing, especially if you want it do anything very useful.

Northumberland is one of the poorest county’s in the UK, if not the poorest.

Northumberland is one of the poorest county’s in the UK, if not the poorest.

It’s not even the poorest in the region. Hartlepool, Gateshead, Middlesbrough, Redcar Sunderland…All score worse on national depravation measures. Northumberland has poverty without a doubt, but it also has pockets of wealth. I think West Wales? and Cornwall? are often cited as the poorest counties, aren’t they?

I don’t think it’s particularly “south-ist” to suggest that because this storm affected one of the more remote regions of the UK, the national spotlight will be elsewhere, and that lots of remote households probably aren’t well served in terms of connections to the grid before Arwen came along and disrupted what meagre resources there were in place already. If I lived here, I’d probably be looking at ways I could make myself more resilient.

If I lived here, I’d probably be looking at ways I could make myself more resilient.

How would you fund it? What well paid work could you find?

Where I am, the majority of people get by on minimum wage, seasonal employment.

Not sure where the “pockets of wealth” are? Unless you mean the 2nd home owners and retirees?

I’m lucky in respect is that my work is well paid but I have to travel for it but it means I can live exactly where I want.

Regards a generator, I could afford it but it isn’t really that physically practicable to install something useful.

How would you fund it? What well paid work could you find?

TBH, a means of making hot food and drinks could be as little as a camping gas stove and a lighter, and that’s going to be £10-15 I see your point about generators, I wouldn’t know where to start either, but that’s something that perhaps communities could look at?

I dunno, I’m guessing really, but having experienced power cuts routinely in other countries, everyone had a means of getting by. It’s just what you had to do.

Storm resilience is just like the snowplough argument – at what point is it affordable / sensible / workable?

We all expect our own personal lane/street plough, but are we ready to pay for it? Would it even work well – the day you need the generator you discover it won’t start as it only runs once every 5 years….

I was speaking to one of our trustees who just moved from London to Loch Tay. He was saying they had not thought through many things in the new house – they bought a new (wireless) phone that needed power to work. They had electric garage door installed as they were elderly, and the supplier forgot to give them the winch handle to manually open it. They had wood burning stoves – but only in lounge(s) so therefore the kitchen and bedrooms more than froze, leading to burst pipes indoors. They had an old quad bike to grit the 200m driveway back to the loch road, but it would not start in the cold, and if it was in the garage, it was stuck with the car behind a door they couldn’t open! Lots for them to work through, and thankfully neighbours came through to help out. BUT, they are very wealthy and can afford all sorts of adjustments and changes…

It’s a tricky one, but I would say that living in a rural area as a kid, we had well stocked cupboards, camping stoves and candles/torches ready throughout the autumn winter period – maybe seemed more a priority with regular power cuts and parents brought up after war.

A recent power problem affecting the bungalows where my parents live now meant that they were the only ones in the close who could boil water on the gas hob, as everyone else had electric hobs.

It’s obviously a wealth related issue, but some self suffiency needs to be built in to most peoples plans. Prepper-lite perhaps

I dunno, I’m guessing really, but having experienced power cuts routinely in other countries, everyone had a means of getting by. It’s just what you had to do.

The power cuts are not “routine” in this area. So to spend a few thousand on a genset and connections to your household electricals, seems a bit much for something that happens every 20 years or so. Plus ongoing maintenance. If it was routine I probably would.

I had plenty of torches and bike lights during the power cut, it was less than 24hrs for me.

We had heating from the log burner but no way of making a brew. My old camping stove wouldn’t work. Cooked on a disposal BBQ.

I have since spent £20 on a new stove and gas. Also bought a electric lantern.

I know a lot of people in the village that only have electric storage heating and they froze for several days, until full power was restored.

It’s obviously a wealth related issue, but some self suffiency needs to be built in to most peoples plans. Prepper-lite perhaps

Yeah this was what I was thinking really. We used to have this sort of stuff tucked away routinely, partner and I have started to make some plans like this  and we live in Manchester.

This is an interesting citizen science initiative to assess the impact of Storm Arwen on forestry:

https://windblow-assessment-forestergis.hub.arcgis.com/

Thanks – I added my little patch of destruction. Interesting to see there’s no FE involvement at the moment with their local patches to us (which got hit hard) missing from the map.

There were loads of trees felled by Arwen near my mate’s house outside Kendal and they’re not on it
I’ll let her know