Residents across Cornwall are being asked not to travel unless necessary as crews work around the clock to clear fallen trees and make emergency repairs following Storm Goretti.

The storm, which was one of the worst seen in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in living memory, has caused major disruption, particularly to roads, coastal areas and local infrastructure.

There are multiple fallen trees across the Duchy, with teams deployed in numerous locations to reopen routes and make them safe.

At midday on Friday (January 9) around 35,000 homes were still without power. National Grid are working hard to get all properties reconnected as soon as possible.

A significant water outage is affecting the Helston and Lizard area, impacting around 15,000 properties. Bottled water is being provided to affected households while emergency repairs are carried out.

Many schools took the decision to either open late, or not open at all due to the risk associated with travel.

Council teams, working alongside emergency services and partner organisations, have worked throughout the night responding to incidents caused by the severe weather.

Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service is continuing to respond to unsafe structures and priority incidents, while working through a backlog of triaged calls.

If your recycling, rubbish, food waste or garden waste is due to be collected, please put your bins and bags out as usual. Crews will try to get to you if it is safe to do so.

Councillor Leigh Frost, Leader of Cornwall Council, said: “Clean-up operations are well underway, but the scale of the damage means this is likely to take several days to fully resolve.

“Our focus is on making roads, footways and critical infrastructure safe as quickly as possible.

“There are a lot of fallen trees on the roads. Driving conditions remain treacherous so please avoid travelling if you can and give our crews the space they need to carry out urgent repairs safely.

“We are extremely grateful to council staff and our colleagues within the emergency services and partner organisations that have been working throughout the night to keep people safe in extremely difficult conditions.”

Where to get help, or report an issue

If you or someone else needs help in an emergency, it’s important to know who to call.

For the police, fire service or medical emergencies, call 999.

  • For non-emergencies, call the police on 101. Use NHS 111 if you need urgent but not life-threatening health advice, or when your GP surgery is closed, and you cannot wait until it re-opens. Visit http://111.nhs.uk or call 111

If you see someone in trouble on the coast, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

Utilities

For gas, water and electrical emergencies:

  • Wales and West – if you smell gas, phone 0800 111 999
  • South West Water – to report a water leak, phone the leak reporting hotline on 0800 230 0561
  • National Grid – to report a power cut, phone 105 or 0800 6783 105Social care emergencies – Safeguarding Adults and Children - 0300 1231 116Highways emergency (report urgent or hazardous issues) – 0300 1234 222
  • Report flooding or drainage issues on public roads by phoning 0300 1234 222
  • Environment Agency Floodline - 24-hour advice – 0345 988 1188

Cornwall Housing Tenants

Emergency repairs – phone 0300 1234 161 if there is:

  • Major damage to the structure of the building
  • Total prolonged loss of essential service, such as gas, water or electricity that results in a serious impact to immediate health or safety of house occupants

Waste collections and street cleaning - 0300 1234 141