We
all knew the wind was coming: we all knew the power would fail. What we did not know, was how long it
would take to fix the power. Sure
enough, the wind arrived on time at 8.00 a.m. and the power went off at about
8.05. The storm was comparatively
short lived – only about half an hour.
The scale of the damage was modest compared with the hurricane of
1987. Most of the roads were
cleared of fallen trees within a couple of hours. But where we were, the power stayed off for 56 hours.
We
were lucky: we had a big log burner, an old fashioned corded phone and a
propane gas hob. We kept our
freezers shut and were surprised that our frozen food survived unscathed. With a large tank we managed to last 36
hours before we ran out of hot water.
However,
there are some things that you don’t think about when the power goes down. Power was cut to telecoms masts, so our
mobiles did not work. But perhaps
the most irritating thing was the various alarms that warn that back up
batteries are not charging. We got
the alarm company to fix the burglar alarm at 5.30 a.m. But we could not find any answer to the
irritating beeps from the smoke alarms or from the cordless phones (other than
consigning them to the garage).
The beeps are designed to be so irritating that you have to get the kit
fixed. As such, they are virtually
impossible to sleep through.
Our
demeanour was not helped by a series of calls at 3.00 in the morning (which
stopped just before we got to the phone) to advise us that our friends’ alarm
had gone off.
It
was impossible to get any idea of when the power would go back on, as UK Power
Networks’ switchboard was permanently jammed.
So
by the time the power eventually came back on we were very grateful, but
totally frazzled.
I
have just read that UK Power Networks will pay us the princely sum of £54
– twice the statutory compensation - as a gesture of goodwill. Great: it will not even cover the alarm
call-out charge.
We
probably get between ten and twenty power cuts a year. Most are very brief and merely
irritating, as we have to reset all our clocks.
The
problem is we are in a rural area at the end of a long run of overhead cables,
which are vulnerable to damage from falling trees. The supply could be made more resilient by undergrounding
the cables. But this is expensive
and the (private) monopoly grid supplier finds it cheaper to fork out to remedy
the chaos that occurs when we get a storm, than providing a proper permanent
solution. Resilience of power
supply is not even on the regulator’s radar. It should be.
It
is ironic that we are within five miles of a nuclear power station and face the
prospect of major disruption and blight while EDF builds another, but we do not
have a reliable electricity supply.
Perhaps the cost of fixing the problem should be part of the price that
the operator pays for Sizewell C?
But
I don’t see anyone doing anything about our problem fast. So I am going to buy a generator. It won’t power everything: but it will
keep our oil-fired heating and hot water going; stop our freezers defrosting;
keep our phones and computers on line; and above all get rid of all those damn
beeps!
