Trail of destruction as 30,000 people left without power in wake of Storm Amy

Tens of thousands of homes remain without power and weather warnings of high winds remain in place in some areas as Storm Amy slowly pulls away.

Disruption to rail services is expected to continue into Sunday as work continues to repair damage from the storm that swept in on Friday.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), the distribution network operator for the north of Scotland, said 34,000 customers remained without power due to the storm as of 8.30pm on Saturday.

Their efforts so far have seen almost 50,000 customers reconnected, with hundreds of tree cutters and engineers clearing routes to reach network damage and carrying out repairs.

This work is expected to continue from first light on Sunday despite a yellow warning of wind remaining in place for the east and north east of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland. The warning is expected to last until midday on Sunday.

The efforts follow significant disruption from Storm Amy, including the collapse of a building onto a car on a busy Glasgow street on Friday.

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In Ireland, the “vast majority” of properties without power in Northern Ireland are expected to have it restored on Sunday, according to crews.

At the peak, the storm caused a loss of supply to approximately 65,000 customers in Ireland. Only 3,000 properties remained without power on Sunday morning, following huge efforts to restore the systems.

Alex Houston, NIE Networks operations manager, said his team was doing its “very best to get as many as possible reconnected today”.

The Met Office said: "Gusts of 60 to 70 mph are possible through the early hours, especially in more exposed areas.

“Winds should generally ease from the west through the morning although (they) will remain strong over, and to the lee of, mountains for some time afterwards.”

It comes after the Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for wind covering the whole of the UK on Saturday, while an amber weather warning of “damaging” winds was in force in northern Scotland until 9pm that day.

The Met Office said wind gusts reached 96mph across northern Scotland on Saturday, where Cassley saw 84.6mm of rain fall in 24 hours.

Weather warnings were also in place across much of the country on Friday when the storm first hit.

Nik Wheeler, SSEN’s head of customer operations for the north of Scotland, said: “I want to reassure our customers that every resource at our disposal is being directed at the reconnection operation, and our efforts to ensure people are kept well informed and looked after while these essential repairs are carried out.

”The storm also caused transport disruption with ferries cancelled, flights affected and roads and railway lines blocked by fallen trees.

Scotrail has since said that Storm Amy caused “extensive damage” to the rail network and that disruption will continue into Sunday, though services will be running across the majority of the network after “round-the-clock work” by Network Rail colleagues.

There will be no services on the Oban/Crianlarich and Fort William/Mallaig West Highland Line, nor on the Far North Inverness/Wick/Kyle lines.

It said that due to infrastructure damage, it does not expect services until early on Sunday afternoon on the Inverness to Elgin, Glasgow Queen Street to Cumbernauld, Glasgow Queen Street to Alloa and Glasgow to Wemyss Bay routes.

ScotRail said: “The impact of Storm Amy has been significant and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused to customers since Friday.

“The safety of our customers and staff is always the priority during these extreme weather events.”

Network Rail Scotland said that more than 280 separate incidents had been recorded by Saturday evening and that teams were “working around the clock” to repair extensive damage caused by Storm Amy. National Rail warned journeys could continue be disrupted across the UK on Sunday

In Ireland, police said a man died in a “weather-related” incident in the Letterkenny area of County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, shortly after 4.15pm on Friday.

SSEN said hundreds of additional team members were working on its response to the storm, which it said saw wind speeds reach 96mph at lower levels on the island of Tiree on Friday, and gusts of more than 100mph in exposed areas.

The company said the strength of the winds has had a “considerable impact” on the network.

In England, the A628 Woodhead Pass reopened between Woodhead and Langsett on Sunday morning after an earlier collision, but it remains closed to high-sided and vulnerable vehicles because of strong winds.