Two to three days before the storm, as forecasts predicted wind speeds in excess of 90mph, we activated our pre-incident planning process. At Jersey Electricity, our ethos is simple: plan for the worst and hope for the best.
With Storm Ciaran still fresh in our minds, we applied key learnings to ensure a more structured and organised approach. Standby teams and Customer Care were mobilised early, ready to respond to whatever the storm might bring. Our priority was clear: support impacted customers wherever possible.
Achieving this takes a true team effort.
Throughout the night, Customer Care colleagues worked tirelessly, taking calls from customers and logging incidents for our Operations team. Urgent cases requiring immediate safety measures were addressed until around 10pm, when we stood down teams to ensure their safety.
By early morning, we had a clear picture of the impact: 80 faults affecting around 400 customers. Not a huge number in the context of a UK network but for Jersey more faults than we typically experience in a year. My expectation was that we were looking at a multi day event where we would have customers without supply for a number of days. As daylight broke, we deployed full resources across the Island. Watching our teams in action, working site to site and restoring power more rapidly than I had expected as the day progressed, was great to see.
By evening, only a handful of customers remained without electricity, to whom we were able to offer hotel accommodation thanks to colleagues who quickly arranged accommodation as part of the storm response.
I’m incredibly proud of how Jersey Electricity colleagues pull together during these moments. For our engineers, these are career-defining challenges, and they always rise to the occasion, supported by a vast network of colleagues who make a real difference.
The feedback from customers has been overwhelming. In times like these, people truly appreciate the extra mile our teams go to restore power in dangerous conditions and value being kept informed every step of the way.
Storm Goretti showed the strength of our people at #TeamJE and the formidable team they make, as well as the strength of our community which always pulls together in times of need.
