04 August 2004 00:00 Central Networks engineers work round the clock after lightning storms

Engineers from Central Networks, the electricity distribution company for the West and East Midlands, worked hard throughout the night to restore power to 107,000 customers affected by yesterday’s (TUES) devastating lightning storm.

In the UK as a whole there were just under 23,000 lightning strikes – and a staggering 7,825, or 34%, of those came in the West Midlands alone. The lightning struck overhead lines and transformers as it moved across the region.

Jim Lightfoot, Customer & Network Operations Director at Central Networks, said: “In the Incident Room at Tipton we have a lightning monitor that allows us to track storms as they approach our region.

“It shows lightning hits as red dots and, by the time storm was at its height, the West Midlands was just a sea of red – you really couldn’t tell where the county boundaries were any more.

“There were three storms moving up from the south coast which merged together over Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

“The beauty of the lightning monitor is that it allows us to predict where strikes are going to be so we get engineers out into the field and up the poles once it’s safe to do so.

“Clearly we can’t have anyone up the poles when there’s a storm but, once it passed, they were able to start work on getting everyone back on power and they did a great job to get tens of thousands of people back on power as quickly as possible.”

The storm first hit the region at around 4.00pm yesterday (TUES) reached its peak at around 7.00pm.

Ends

Notes to editors:
Customers affected at 12.30pm today –
Warwickshire 619
Shropshire 275
Gloucestershire 666
Worcestershire 1764
West Midlands 8
Total 3332

For further information contact:
Rebecca Jackson on 07879 800084