Nearly 1,000 Iden homes without power on Christmas Day

Christmas dinners were left uncooked as 983 homes in Iden had a power cut at around 11.10am on Friday (December 25).

The majority had their electricity back between 12.45pm and 1.42pm but 16 were left until 3pm and two had to wait until about 7.10pm.

A UK Power Networks spokesman apologised for the outage and explained how two houses were without power for eight hours.

“UK Power Networks sincerely apologises to customers in the Iden area of Rye who were affected by a power interruption on Friday,” they said.

“We understand how difficult this must have been on Christmas Day.

“A fault on an underground electricity cable interrupted supplies to 983 customers at 11.12am and engineers restored most supplies between 12.45am and 1.42pm.

“Of those remaining, a further 16 had power again just after 3pm and the final two were restored at 7.10pm.”

The village shop managed as it has a back-up generator for the refrigerated food.

Resident Gill Griffin was luckily having her Christmas dinner at the Bell Inn but she felt sorry for those who would have been waiting to cook their turkeys.

“How did everyone fare, for the couple of tense hours, with perhaps a house full of people, and thoughts of possibly having to open a can of tuna? Was anyone midway between cooking the turkey, with no hope of a roast potato,” she said.

Ms Griffin said the Iden Community Emergency Forum (ICE) came round to her house to tell her when the power would be back on, as they did with other houses in the village.

“There was a knock on our door, and a lovely lady from ICE was on the doorstep, to tell us that we would have power in about two hours,” she said.

“That was thoughtful, on Christmas day, thinking of the needs of others.

“It felt weird for a power cut to happen on Christmas day, almost a sign from the heavens letting us know that we are not invincible.

“Thank you ICE for putting our minds at rest, because we had surely become a village collectively worried about the fate of our sprouts and bread sauce.

“Isn’t it funny, how even a minor disaster like a lack of electricity on Christmas Day brings people together, and whips us all into shape?”

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