Archie Farmerand
Zhara Simpson,South West
More than 25,000 people are still without power in Cornwall following Storm Goretti which battered the county on Thursday and Friday.
Communities have been rallying together after a rare red weather warning for wind was issued on Thursday, with a further yellow warning for wind for Devon and Cornwall on Friday.
At one point, more than 47,000 homes in the county were without power and thousands of homes were without running water due to power outages at a water treatment works.
On Saturday, National Grid said more than 25,600 people were still without power in Cornwall. South West Water (SWW) said about 11,500 properties in the Helston and Mount’s Bay areas were without water.
Sam Bottomley, from SWW, said it had been a “challenging period”.
He said there were two bottled water stations were currently in place for customers at the old Flambards car park in Helston and the Folly Field car park in Marazion.
Teams had also been delivering bottled water to those on its priority register, which would continue daily, he added.
Mr Bottomley said: “We’re really sorry some customers have been without water since Friday.
“This issue was caused by Storm Goretti, which led to a power outage at our Wendron water treatment works.”
He said customers would see water return throughout Saturday and Sunday, and into next week, adding staff were trying to restore supplies as “quick” as they could.
“We are trying to locate other sites across the region in Cornwall down towards the Lizard to support people.
“The difficulty we’ve had is some of the sites we had earmarked in the past to use for bottled water stations have suffered damage.
“We have two sites running and hope to get a third or a fourth set up over the weekend.”
Devon and Cornwall Police said on Saturday a man in his 50s died after a tree fell onto his caravan on Thursday during the storm.
Residents were displaced, schools closed or start times delayed and businesses and properties were damaged.
In Falmouth, a mum and her two children had a lucky escape after a tree crashed through their roof.
Emily Hitchkiss and her two young children were at home as Storm Goretti hit.
She said if her children had remained upstairs or been asleep when that tree came down, she feared they would have died.
Ms Hitchkiss said: “There was smashing glass and a great big tree just came through the front of the house.
“It was seconds really from impaling me and my children.
“My little boy was petrified, there was bits of wood flying everywhere, smashing glass.”
Villages cut off
The village of Malpas in Cornwall was cut off overnight after a 93-year-old tree came down.
The Heron Inn said a team of villagers with chainsaws took it upon themselves to deal with the tree in daylight hours when the storm had passed.
On Saturday morning, Paul Gentleman from Great Western Railway (GWR) said rail replacement services were in place between Truro to Falmouth and St Austell to Newquay.
Mr Gentleman said: “I can’t remember anything as bad as this.”
Amy Hall, from the National Welfare Trust (NAWT) in Hayle, said she woke up to find lots of debris at the centre but the fence surrounding the exercise area at the back, where they took their dogs, was “completely down”.
“We have a tree that’s gone into it. There’s trees down around the centre and we’ve had one come down on our storage carriage as well,” she said.
“It’s been difficult. The main thing we are worried about is the exercise mound for the dogs – that’s their enrichment space and a safe space.”
There were severe delays on the train lines into and out of Cornwall, late into Thursday and throughout Friday.
Very few trains ran, with a route-proving train leaving Penzance, equipped with chainsaw cutting crews on board who got off when they came across debris, cleared it and then inspected the track.
The education system was heavily impacted, with hundreds of schools and colleges in Cornwall closed due to the storm and its aftermath.
