An Aberdeenshire mum has revealed how she had to improvise to feed her family after the community lost power for 24 hours.
Like other parts of the north-east, Hatton of Fintray was hit by the strong gusts of Storm Gerrit yesterday, with it leading to a power outage.
To help residents, a generator – which was donated by a local to be used when there is no power – was used to provide electricity in the village hall.
About 25-30 people were in line to get their free food, including mum-of-five Caroline Roberts, who was with four of her children.
Mum with baby was without power for almost 24 hours
She had been without power for almost 24 hours and said: “I have a baby, who’s one, and still takes milk from a bottle, so we had no hot water to make our food.”
After failing to get to the supermarket in Dyce because of the B977 being impassible, she said she had to “improvise”.
“When I went back home I lit the fire and boiled a pot over it, and then just warmed up some leftovers from Christmas over the fire as well, to just eat something.”
Generator helped residents
This morning, the Roberts family thought their power issues were resolved, as it came on at 7.20am, only for it to turn straight back off.
Mrs Roberts described the SSEN food truck – which served burgers, morning rolls and hot dogs – as “great and perfect”.
However, added: “I can’t wait to have our own electricity so we can have our own food.”
Chairman of Fintray Community Council, Roddy MacInnes, told The P&J that everybody in the village “works together for the benefit of the community”:
He added: “People in the village and the immediate environment are used to being pretty resilient and have done well.
“We made the decision that if there was no power by this morning then we would get the generator hooked up and at least people could come here and get a hot drink and charge phones.”
“It’s worked out well, although it’s a bit unfortunate it was off for a period of time, but at least it wasn’t freezing cold last night.”
To help residents of the village, which has a population of around 230, energy company SSEN put on a food truck for those affected by the power outages.
Unhappy at SSEN
Sarah Ure, who was at Hatton of Fintray Village Hall to get some hot water, said she was unhappy at SSEN, as she is signed up to their priority services due to her son having epilepsy.
She tried to phone the company yesterday to discuss this, but as she could not find a number, she had to call 105 – the line for reporting power outages.
“They said they’d update me by 11pm and I never got an update until 8.30am this morning,” the mum said.
She added: “We’ve been in a situation before that he has needed an ambulance and he’s started taken seizures, but because we’ve been blocked in with all the roads because of the flooding and no electric, we haven’t been able to get a hold of people.”
The village’s power was restored at around 10.30am this morning.
Conversation