Homes and businesses in Aberdeen have been warned phones damages during this week’s deluge of rain may not be fixed until next week.
Manholes of BT and cable chambers filled up with rising floodwater during Tuesday’s storm, meaning that many around the city centre and Harbour area have been faced with no internet connection or working landlines.
On Tuesday evening engineers began to repair the service, but cannot operate during the daytime because of traffic management regulations.
A BT spokesman confirmed: “Around 300 telephone and broadband users in Aberdeen remain without service following the torrential rain and flash floods which swept through many city streets on Tuesday.
“Lines to homes and businesses, mainly in the harbour area, went down as BT manholes and cable chambers filled up with rising floodwater.
“Openreach engineers are working to restore service but access to sites requires having to obtain traffic management permissions and there are restrictions on daytime working.
He added: “It will take several days to reconnect all of the affected lines.”
As a result businesses in the city centre have found this week a chaotic one.
At the Annie Mo’s furniture store on Union Street the inability to use their ATMs machine has meant customers have been forced to go to the bank for small transaction.
For a store which sells items worth thousands of pounds, this has been a problem.
Sales assistant Emily McDonald said: “It’s been an actual nightmare, we’ve had no contact from customers.
“It has set business back, we hope it’s fixed by the weekend otherwise it’s an absolute disaster.
“We’ve sent customers away to ATMs to buy stuff, but when they’re coming in to make £3000 orders you can’t exactly do that.
“We’ve had to put some through to our Glasgow office on the phone so it’s been tough.”