The first weekend of December was certainly an interesting one for ICS’s home city Lancaster, as severe flooding caused a variety of issues.

Numerous roads were closed off after the River Lune burst its banks on Saturday 5th and flooding meant it was unsafe to travel across them. Four/five foot flooding in the city centre caused deserted cars to literally float in the floodwater, and many out that Saturday night were unable to get home until the floodwater had receded.

Cars were floating in the floodwater

The floodwater even managed to breach defences at Lancaster’s main substation, meaning that the 55,000 properties in Lancaster were left without power.

The power cut continued through to the Sunday – the daylight that day saw what many have described as an ‘apocalypse’, with the majority of shops closed due to no power/flooding, shop alarms ringing, and more people walking than you can imagine due to most not being able to drive their cars. With most people without internet or phone signal, there was more in-person communication than there has been in Lancaster for a very long time.

After over 36 hours without power, Electricity North West used electricity generators to provide power to most of Lancaster whilst repairs were made to the substation. Unfortunately another power cut occurred shortly before 4pm on Monday 7th, as unforeseen flood damage at the site caused a significant fault.

Thankfully power resumed for most properties around 9am the next day, and due to the people of Lancaster saving power, there no were no planned power cuts. On Friday 11th all Lancaster properties were put back on the grid, meaning that the people of Lancaster now have a normal and reliable power supply. Although there are still businesses that have not been able to reopen due to severe flooding, with our power back the city of Lancaster can now look to getting back to normal.

Our power has been restored because engineers have been working literally round the clock to restore supplies and repair our substation after the extensive damage Storm Desmond caused. Engineers have not just been doing a remarkable job in Lancaster, but also in Cumbria which was hit by Storm Desmond the worst. Most properties affected by the storm in Cumbria have now had power restored after engineers did door-to-door checks safety checks as well as repair works at a number of Cumbria’s substations.

It was certainly a surreal week in Lancaster, but it is thanks to the engineers that we have our power back and can get back to normal. To do the work that they did in less than a week is an amazing accomplishment, and shows just how much we need our engineers. In our current technology-obsessed world we often take things like light, internet and heating for granted, and it can take something like a power cut to realise that our world would be nothing without engineers.

The engineering industry is certainly one that ICS is fond of, and many workers in the engineering industry are contractors. We don’t see why engineering contractors should have to waste time on accountancy when they’re so busy making our world go round, so we’ve been helping engineering contractors with their accountancy since 2002 – you can take a look at our Engineering Contractor Accountants page here.