Storm Ciara sweeps across North East

Storm Ciara battered the North East yesterday, bringing heavy rain and strong winds of up to 60mph in parts.

The Met Office had issued a Yellow Warning for wind and an Amber Warning for rain.

Flooding was reported across Sunderland, South Shields and the rest of the North East.

The bad weather caused travel disruption across the country with many train providers cancelling services.

Northern Rail confirmed that there was significant disruption to services as a result of the strong winds and rain.

Cross Country trains tweeted: “Everyone is working together to try and keep services moving today, including our train crew getting out to move trees out of the way. We don't recommend travelling today as services will be severely disrupted during the journey.”

Northern Powergrid reported that engineers were dealing with thousands of power cuts across the region as a result of Storm Ciara.

The company, which is responsible for managing the electricity distribution network across the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire, confirmed that it had restored power to around 23,400 customers and was continuing to deal with power cuts across the region.

Engineers were working in challenging conditions to repair the damage caused to Northern Powergrid’s network and restore power to the 22,100 more customers affected. Specialist vehicles were being used to assist with the challenging weather conditions.