More than 2,000 homes across Wales and South West England are still without power after strong winds from Storm Darragh swept across the UK last weekend.
Cabinet Office minister Abena Oppong-Asare said earlier this week that homes were expected to see power restored by Wednesday, but according to the National Grid 2,048 homes in South Wales and the South West region were still without electricity as of 2pm on Thursday.
Iwan Ward, councillor for Boncath, Clydau and Manordeifi in Pembrokeshire, said he fears those without power could face being “frozen to death”.
“I know quite a few without power… since Saturday morning,” Mr Ward told the PA news agency.
“If it carries on much longer, we’re going to be finding people deceased in their houses because they were frozen to death and it is that serious.”
He said the issue has left some without access to a phone, cooker or heating.
“This doesn’t just affect electricity, it affects phone lines… a lot of people are using electric cookers and mobile phone masts are down because they need power, so it’s a blackout,” Mr Ward said.
“We may as well be in the 18th century, that’s how it’s been.”
Mr Ward criticised the National Grid for “dangling carrots in front us” after residents were promised power would return sooner.
“(The National Grid) have been giving us timelines of maybe it’ll be fixed in 12 hours or 24 hours – then that time comes and they push it on another 12 hours,” he said.
“If they had declared a major incident and, right at the start, said this is going to take us seven to 10 days to repair, people would have then put things in place, gone and stayed with family members, booked into a hotel.
“Instead they’ve made people think, ‘I can make it until 6 o’clock tomorrow morning’.”
He believes the energy company should have installed generators sooner to help restore power for more residents.
“They should have come in on Saturday and Sunday, put generators into strategic places, got power back into certain lines, and then started to look at the repair,” he said.
He praised teams “on the ground working tirelessly to get up our power back on” but urged the National Grid “to listen to the residents and the politicians after this incident and learn from it”.
A spokesperson for the National Grid said: “The vast majority of customers who lost power as a result of the storm have now been restored.
“There are some pockets where small numbers of customers remain without power, and we have teams working around the clock to get them restored as soon as possible.
“Generators and battery packs are being supplied to vulnerable customers, we are delivering hot food and drinks in the most impacted areas, and warm hubs have been opened in partnership with Local Authorities.
“The Red Cross is assisting our own staff in carrying out welfare checks for those without power.”
It has advised members of the public to call 105 or visit the energy company’s website and social media channels for updates and access to support.
Lawrence Slade, chief executive of Energy Networks Association, which represents the UK’s electricity networks, said Wales was “one of the worst affected areas” after Storm Darragh caused widespread damage across the UK.
“For most of the weekend it was unsafe to deploy engineers due to strong, destructive winds which only subsided after the weather warning ended on Sunday evening,” Mr Slade said.
“A rare red weather warning for wind was issued on Saturday and hundreds of additional engineers from across the UK have been drafted in and are supporting thousands of staff working to reconnect the remaining homes and businesses. Access to fix damage has remained challenging for most of this week.”
