Engineers working to restore power to thousands of homes across Lancashire following Storm Franklin

High winds topping 65mph and heavy rain hit the region overnight which caused more than 12,900 homes to lose power.

Hundreds of engineers had already restored power to thousands of properties since storms Dudley and Eunice hit the region and restored another 10,469 on Sunday (February 21).

Stephanie Trubshaw, Electricity North West’s customer director, said: "It has been an incredibly busy few days for the region given the conditions brought by Storms Dudley, Eunice and now Franklin.

"Each time we have managed to restore all properties before the next storm swept in.

“Unsurprisingly, the majority of power cuts have been caused by trees falling on overhead power lines and our teams are out on site now assessing the damage that has been caused and making repairs where possible."

The strong winds have caused more than 50 separate incidents on the power network, the majority being in Cumbria and Lancashire.

The Met Office's yellow weather warning remained in place until Monday (January 21) afternoon and engineers will remain on standby for the coming days as more high winds are forecast.

"Because of the number of issues and the continuing winds, all our estimated times for restoration have been set between 24 and 48 hours," Stephanie Trubshaw added.

"Once our teams get to site and assess the damage, we'll update those estimates based on what they tell us so that we can give the most accurate updates possible."

"I ask customers if they do see any damaged electricity equipment or lines down to stay away as it could be live and extremely dangerous.

"But, please do call us immediately on 105 so we can make the area safe."

The latest updates are available at www.enwl.co.uk/livepowercuts.

Electricity North West offers extra support to customers through their Priority Services Register. For more information and to register visit www.enwl.co.uk/priority.

Live power cut information in the region is available at www.enwl.co.uk/livepowercuts, and the network can be contacted on Twitter or Facebook, or by calling for free on 105 from any phone.

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