RESIDENTS living near Wellington have spoken about their “vulnerability” after losing all power and means of communication amid the devastation brought by Storm Darragh.

Neighbours Alby Anderson and Philip Newnes, who live in Chipley, near Langford Budville, say they were “out on a limb” after electricity supplies, Internet, and mobile phone connections were severed amid the strong winds.

Multiple severe weather warnings were in force across the UK over the weekend with a rare ‘red’ danger to life wind warning for the Bristol Channel and the West Somerset coast being issued by the Met Office.

Hundreds of homes in rural areas near Wellington left without power after raging winds in excess of 90mph brought chaos to parts of the UK from Saturday (November 7)

Both Philip and Alby say their electricity returned on Sunday (December 8) evening but they say the only received a 90v supply for a 240v system.

Around 30 households in Chipley were affected by the same prolonged power outage, with electricity being completely reinstated by around 1pm on Monday, December 9.

Philip Newnes, who is in his 70s and lives in Chipley, said: “We had no internet, no mobile signal and no phone line, and we felt very vulnerable because we couldn't contact anybody.

“If we wanted to speak to any family members, we had to leave here and go out in the weather to get somewhere to be able to contact them.

“You know, we are in our seventies, we're quite able-bodied, but if one of us had a stroke or a heart attack, heaven forbid. You couldn't ring any emergency services. It's quite frightening.

“Fortunately, we have got a cooker that has a gas hob, which meant that we could actually heat some water up, so we could have hot drinks, and just a flannel-type wash.

“It was going back to dark days. We had candles for lighting in the evening because there was no electric light. We went to bed when it got dark at 6pm because you couldn't do anything.”

Philip’s neighbour, Alby, who runs holiday let business Chipley Escapes from home which also was affected by the outages.

He said: “Due to the power cut, we had to cancel two people staying for two nights.”

“There wasn’t a lot of communication and we all struggled to find out what was going on, so we were all sort of out on a limb.

“It's been pretty tough, and then we’ve had the prospect of not knowing what was happening in the next few days.”

Chairman of Langford Budville Parish Council, Derek Sowden, said it was thanks to the strong community spirit that the village managed through the storm.

He said: “We’ve got quite a strong community in Langford Budville.

“We’re electricity powered (at home), so we couldn’t do anything, but fortunately one of our neighbours has a gas hob and offered us hot drinks.

“A number of our residents are very elderly and vulnerable, and we tried our best to look after those residents as best we could.

“Thankfully, we have a large WhatsApp group for locals that we communicated through to support one another.”