Outage outrage after Storm Goretti hits internet

People in Cornwall have been left angry and frustrated over delays in reconnecting them to the internet after Storm Goretti.

The storm left thousands of people with no power or water but engineers were able to reconnect all those customers after seven days.

But 28,000 households were left with no broadband internet, with residents complaining the online outage meant they were unable to work, keep up with schoolwork or make phone calls.

The regional head of Openreach, the company responsible for much of Cornwall's phone and internet infrastructure, said engineers had been working around the clock to reconnect people, but admitted 900 people were still without internet access on Monday morning.

Tara Robinson, from Ruan Lanihorne on the Roseland peninsula, endured 10 days with no mobile phone signal and no internet access, and was unable to access technical support or emergency engineering help from her broadband provider.

She said: "It's frustrating for myself as a business owner. I'm just trying to restart my business.

"I can't get online, I can't do the product uploads or the promotion.

"My husband's a gardener, he's struggling to keep on top of invoicing, which he sends out regularly; or to get quotes on materials, for example, for fences that have come down. He's trying to find lumber materials.

"For my kids, they're disconnected from their friends, they're disconnected from their communications with school and that's been quite disruptive for us."

After speaking to the BBC on Friday, Tara Robinson and her family were reconnected on Sunday.

Nic Hart, south-west regional director of Openreach, confirmed 28,000 customers were without phone or broadband at the peak of outages, but staff had been "working tirelessly" to reduce that number to 900 by Monday.

She said: "We've had a massive number of poles and overhead cables come down. We've had other things blocking the network; I even had... specialist vehicles in yards blocked in and we couldn't even get them out - that on top of the power outages have hampered us.

"That said, the response from our Cornish team and our family of engineers down there has been nothing short of phenomenal.

"They are working very, very long days, starting early, finishing late; and we have had a fantastic response from the rest of my region and the rest of the UK."

Hart added 95 engineers, 90 specialist engineers and six poling gangs had been deployed to the county to work on remaining outages.

Ongoing internet issues were "deeply concerning", according to Security Minister Dan Jarvis MP, who visited Cornwall on Friday.

He said: "We will be looking at what has happened there and making sure that, should another storm occured on this kind of scale, that the recovery, the response in that particular area is faster than it has been the case this time."

The MP for Truro and Falmouth Jayne Kirkham said: "Openreach need to step up because they are the provider.

"National Grid have stepped up, South West Water stepped up, so they need to step up and get everybody connected and work with Cornwall Council and [council contractor] Cormac, who are removing those trees, and get those lines back on."

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