OVER 1,000 south Cumbria homes have been left without electricity due to Storm Ciara.

The 'storm of the century' swept across the UK on Sunday, with heavy rain and gusts of up to 97mph causing widespread flooding and major transport disruptions.

Almost a million properties nationwide have experienced power outages as a result of the extreme weather conditions.

In the South Lakes, over a thousand were left without power this weekend.

Kendal is understood to have been one of the towns that was worst affected by the storm in south Cumbria.

Electricity North West said it restored power to 303 of those properties within three minutes through our automatic systems. Other restorations took longer due to the network damage that our teams had to repair in difficult conditions.

Sam Loukes, Incident Manager and Electricity North West, said: “Sunday was extremely busy and I want to thank colleagues who worked late into the night to ensure power was restored to our customers.

“I want to thank customers for their patience and support they showed as engineers worked to restore power supplies as quickly and as safely as possible.

“The conditions were some of the worst we have seen for five years, however, I’m really pleased with how we handled Storm Ciara and our advanced planning certainly paid off.

“Across the country more than 750,000 properties were left without power so we’re pleased our network here in the North West has held up well and our preparations reduced the impact.

“Storm Ciara is now passing, however more bad weather is forecast, we will continue to monitor the weather closely, have engineers on standby and ensure we are well prepared for more blustery conditions.”