The Met Office has issued a red weather warning for Storm Eunice which will bring strong winds and rain to much of the UK - see here for weather warnings in force. Storm Dudley is behind us but the worst is still expected to come with the highest wind speeds Essex has had since St. Judeโs Day Storm in October 2013.
If you think thereโs a risk to public safety, do not report it online, please call Essex County Council immediately on 0345 603 7631 or if you have hearing problems you can use the text phone service on 0345 758 5592. Only call 999 if there is a risk to life.
If you spot something that needs attention or want to know more information, the following links will be able to help you:
๐ช๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ A๐น๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ โ Follow the Met Office for severe weather warning updates
๐ฃ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ C๐๐๐ โ Visit the UK Power Networks website and type in your postcode to view their live power cut map, with details of individual power cuts. Call 105 or tweet @UKPowerNetwork to report a power cut or speak to the customer service team
๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ O๐๐๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ - If you find your water supply has been affected, or you need to speak to someone urgently in an emergency, you can call Essex and Suffolk Water on 0345 782 0999.
Now is a good time for any of their customers who may need additional support to sign up to the Priority Services Register, so if you have any elderly family members or neighbours, or you know someone who might need some extra support from them during a storm you can register here.
Fallen Trees and Highway issues - Report to Essex County Council via their website.
Emergency Highway & Flooding Contacts - https://www.essex.gov.uk/floods-emergency-planning
Flood Updates - https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/alerts-and-warnings
Live Road Updates - follow twitter.com/essex_travel
Service Updates from Essex County Council
- Essex Country Parks are to be closed tomorrow
- ACL Essex Centres across the county will be closed.
- The QE2 and Orwell bridges will also be closed
- Essex recycling centres may be forced to shut at short notice if necessary
- Rail passengers are being asked to travel only if necessary
- Essex County Fire and Rescue Service is advising residents to ensure property and garden furniture is well secured and check in on any vulnerable neighbours and family members to make sure they are safe.
Updates from Essex & Suffolk Water
We have put plans in place and are as prepared as we possibly can be for the storm, and we will be doing everything we can to make sure we keep the water flowing for customers. Extra checks are taking place in rural locations to ensure resilience at these sites. We are keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, as we always do and we have extra people in place in our operational teams, as well as extra resources in customer services help any customers who need it.
We are in contact with stakeholders such as other utility companies, Local Authorities and Emergency services and will be working together with them to help communities.
We are advising customers to make sure that their most up-to-date details are stored in our system by going on www.eswater.co.uk/register.
Customers who need additional help should sign up to the priority services register by going to www.eswater.co.uk/priority.
If there are any issues with supply, or customers need to speak to someone urgently in an emergency, they can call 0345 7171100. We will be keeping customers updated on our social media channels at @eswater_care and via our Facebook page Essex & Suffolk Waterโ. We will also keep the local media aware of any updates.
Updates from Greater Anglia
Just to let you know that because of the severe weather warning for Friday 18 February, and the expected impact of Storm Eunice, there are a number of precautionary changes being made to train services across our network tomorrow.
Network Rail is putting speed restrictions in place across the network because of the forecast severity of the storm and we are reducing the frequency of our train services. Those services that are running will be subject to longer journey times, because of the speed restrictions. Further disruption may be caused by trees or other objects being blown onto tracks or overhead lines or other damage caused by the storm โ which could also lead to short notice cancellations or delays.
Rail passengers are therefore being advised to only travel if their journey is essential.
The planned service patterns for tomorrow, including two route closures and some train frequency reductions as follows :
Service suspensions
There will be no service on the Ipswich to Lowestoft (East Suffolk) line and the Marks Tey to Sudbury line owing to the risk of falling trees. These routes have suffered similar problems in the past and, because of the rural location of these lines, it can take longer for Network Rail staff to rescue passengers from stranded trains if trees do fall. It is therefore safer to close these lines and keep passengers safe.
Half hourly service
- Southend Victoria to London Liverpool Street
- Stansted Airport to London Liverpool Street
- Cambridge, Bishopโs Stortford to London Liverpool Street
- Hertford East to London Liverpool Street
- Bishops Stortford to Stratford
Hourly service
- Norwich to London Liverpool Street Intercity service
- Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford to London Liverpool Street
- Southminster โ Wickford
- Harwich โ Manningtree
- Walton-on-the-Naze - Thorpe-le-Soken
- Clacton-on-Sea โ Colchester
- Braintree to Witham
- Norwich to Cambridge
- Norwich to Great Yarmouth
- Norwich to Lowestoft
- Meridian Water to Stratford
Two hourly (once every two hours)
- Ipswich to Cambridge
- Ipswich to Felixstowe
- Ipswich to Peterborough
- Norwich to Sheringham
In the event of any additional service disruption we will do our best to provide a rail replacement bus service, but it is likely to be limited and subject to disruption on the roads due to storm damage.
Customers who have booked tickets for travel on Friday 18 February can use them on another day. Customers can choose to rearrange their travel plans fee free, which can be done where they bought them.
We are contacting any customers who have booked passenger assistance on affected services. They can also call Greater Anglia to check or rearrange their journey by calling 0800 028 2878 (free from a landline), text type 18001 0800 028 2878 or call from a mobile phone on 0345 6007245.
We hope that services will be back to normal on Saturday, but clearly if there has been significant damage it may be that there some ongoing effects on some services. We therefore advise everyone to check before they travel.
In partnership with colleagues at Network Rail, we will be doing all we can to minimise the adverse effects of Storm Eunice on train services and on the journeys of those customers who do need to travel, but it is forecast to cause significant disruption, so we have put in place the plans outlined for tomorrow in the interests of providing the most realistic, practical service and keeping everyone safe.
Updates from Openreach
A rare 'red warning' for danger to life, for what could be Britain's worst storm in 32 years, is in place which currently covers the South West.
We therefore expect to see an increase in damage and fault intake tomorrow and over the coming days. Weโll be working really hard to bring people back into service as quickly as we possibly can. Of course, the safety of our engineers, end customers and the general public will be paramount at all times. Weโre therefore carrying out risk assessments to ensure our engineers and our partners only work when and where it is completely safe to do so.
We encourage homes and businesses affected by the storm damage to contact their broadband service provider, in the first instance. Openreach is a wholesaler, our customers are the Communication Providers (such as Sky, BT, Talk Talk and others) from whom homes and businesses buy their service.
We will also be posting updates on the storm response on Openreach.com and on our Twitter account @WeAreOpenreach
Please stay safe and take care when out and about.