As Storm Bram moves in, we’ve further scaled up our response

Ahead of the worst of Storm Bram’s winds moving across the north of Scotland later today, we’ve taken further steps to prepare for the disruption that could be caused by this spell of severe weather. The forecast has deteriorated over the past day, and potentially damaging winds could affect electricity supplies across much of our network area.

💨 The latest weather forecast 

We’ve already been watching the path and intensity of Storm Bram for several days. Over the past 24 hours, our forecasters have widened their predictions for the areas expected to be affected. Several hours of heavy rain across Scotland are now being followed by sustained storm-force winds, which will persist well into Wednesday morning.

The gusts will be at their strongest in the Western Isles, the West Highlands, and on Skye, where 90 mph winds are possible. There’s also potential for 65 mph gusts in Caithness and Orkney, across Perthshire and Angus, and through the Great Glen.

The Met Office has expanded its Amber and Yellow Warnings for Tuesday and Wednesday – you can read more about these here

👷 How we're responding

In anticipation of the greater disruption these more widespread winds could cause, we’ve taken further steps, in addition to those enacted earlier in the week.

• Extra network maintenance crews are in place on the Western Isles, in Skye and at our Fort William depot. They will work to repair faults as safely and quickly as they can once conditions allow.
• All planned network maintenance for Wednesday has been cancelled; taking this decision frees up more engineering teams to carry out repairs to storm damage.
• More switching teams will also be working late into this evening to reconfigure the network around damage locations when possible.
• We’ve doubled the number of tree-cutting teams on shift; they will be ready to clear paths to sites where we need to gain access.
• Extra people are on duty in our Customer Contact Centre to take calls and respond to messages coming to us via social media.

We expect that the network impact of this storm will be most acute and extensive in the area covered by the Met Office’s expanded and lengthened amber weather warning. In addition to the possibility of widespread direct network damage, access to repair sites may also be hindered by fallen trees and other storm debris. These factors mean it may take longer to get everyone’s supply reconnected. However, our teams will complete this work as safely and quickly as they can, and it’s likely power will come on sooner than expected if we can remotely reroute the network.

For those customers who may need extra help if their power is off, our specialist Priority Services team is continuing the process of contacting customers already registered for free support during a power cut. We’ve already sent text messages to nearly 180,000 customers in the areas most likely to be affected.

We’ll continue to monitor the weather closely, and we’ll issue further updates depending on the forecast.   

📞 Help and advice

If you see any damage to our equipment, please stay back, don’t touch it and instead report it to us directly by calling 105, or via our Power Track website, and engineers will investigate as soon as possible.

Customers are also being encouraged to be prepared for the possibility of disruption to supplies by:

• Saving the emergency power cut number - '105' - to your phone to report any loss of supply or damage to the electricity network
• Visiting our Power Track Website to give you details of power cuts and restoration times. You can also report power cuts and network damage through Power Track.
• Visiting the "Preparing for a power cut" section on our website, where there is a wealth of advice and information, or to chat live to one of our advisors via the Webchat service

Customers are also eligible for our Priority Services if they:

• Are deaf or hard of hearing
• Have a disability
• Live with children under five
• Are blind or partially-sighted
• Have a chronic illness
• Use medical equipment/aids reliant on electricity
• Are over 60.

To find out more about our Priority Services, click here or call 0800 294 3259.