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Thousands of homes in the south-west of England were still without power or water on Monday in the aftermath of Storm Goretti.
It has been four days since Goretti brought gusts of almost 100mph and a rare red warning for “dangerous, stormy” winds, but the continued disruption has led one Cornish MP to call for a “national emergency”.
As of Monday afternoon, National Grid said about 1,250 properties remained without power, mostly around Helston, while South West Water (SWW) said about 3,000 homes were without water and Cornwall council said 31 schools in the region were either closed or opening late.
SWW said on its website on Sunday that the impact of Storm Goretti on its water network had been “devastating”, with the company adding that six major water mains in the Helston area had been “severely damaged” by uprooted trees and that this was continuing to affect water supply for customers.
Sam Bottomley, its water services director for Devon and Cornwall, said about 30 to 40 trees had been blown down during the storm, with many landing directly on top of the mains coming out of Wendron water treatment works in Cornwall. Repair works were continuing, the company said, adding that it had restored supplies to more than half of those affected.
Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, has called on the government to provide more support. In a Facebook post on Sunday, he said: “If this happened in London or the home counties it would have been headline national news for days and the government would declare a national emergency.”
He added that his call for a national emergency led to a “hastily put-together meeting of the emergency ministerial strategic response group chaired by Defra minister Mary Creagh MP” on Sunday.
Creagh said she had met water bosses. “I remain very concerned that people in several areas in thesouth-east and south-west are experiencing water supply issues following both cold weather and Storm Goretti,” she told the BBC.
On Monday, George hit out at the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for failing to grant the Lib Dem MP the right to call for a national emergency response despite granting one to East Grinstead in Sussex, which he said “has been suffering a water outage across 16,500 homes”.
“I have every sympathy for the beleaguered people of East Grinstead and would never seek to diminish the terrible impact this has had and is having on them. But I’m certain the impact of the devastating storm experienced in Cornwall and on Scilly would dwarf that of the poor folk affected in the south-east. Over 50,000 homes have experienced water and/or electricity outages here,” he said in a post on Facebook.
George said the impact on the south-west’s most vulnerable people had been significant. He cited one incident in which some nursing home residents had to be evacuated after the roof was ripped off in the storm and the home lost power and water supply.
Janine Williams, the landlord of the Blue Anchor pub in Helston, told the BBC: “It’s been a bit of a mess. We’ve had a lot of people coming in trying to charge their phones.
“We’ve been quite lucky. The electric stayed on and we’ve got well water, so we’ve managed to keep our doors open. We’ve had our fires on and heating on, so people have had a warm place to sit.
“Last night, our mains water got cut off again after being put back on.”
On Friday, a man was found dead after a tree fell on to a caravan. Devon and Cornwall police said emergency services were called at about 7.35pm on Thursday to the Mawgan area of Helston where work took place on Friday to remove the tree. A man in his 50s was found dead in the caravan. His death is not being treated as suspicious and his next of kin have been informed, police said.
