A city, towns and villages were plunged into darkness last night - with a power cut continuing to cause chaos this morning.
More than 75,000 properties were affected by a mass outage late last night across St Albans, Borehamwood, and Hatfield.
The lights and power went out shortly before 11pm with dozens of people reporting the fault to UK Power Networks and even more taking to social media to see if anyone else was affected.
Good evening to everyone else in St Albans and the surrounding area who just searched 'power cut' on Twitter
— Cameron Mel🥁 (@c_meldrum) October 20, 2019
We are receiving reports that a large area of Hertfordshire including Hatfield, St Albans and Borehamwood have experienced a power cut. We are receiving a lot of calls at this moment in time - please only call us if there is an emergency situation.
— Herts Fire Control (@HertsFRSControl) October 20, 2019
Good evening, sorry to hear you're without power at the moment. We have just been made aware of a large fault in the area. We will be working to get your power restored as soon as possible, if you would like further updates then please feel free to send us your number. - Adam
— UK Power Networks (@UKPowerNetworks) October 20, 2019
Anyone else just get a full power cut? St Albans area - took out everything including mobile network, street lights, the lot. About 20 mins.
— Nearly Legal (@nearlylegal) October 20, 2019
Weird. Power cut in St Albans and it seems like it’s the whole city. It’s creepy dark out there now.
— Chris West (@ChrisTheWest) October 20, 2019
Fairly substantial power cut in St Albans @UKPowerNetworks
— Gareth P (@ickoonite) October 20, 2019
Some mobile networks also went down, and traffic lights and streetlights switched off too.
The power was back in most homes by 11.30pm with UKPN revealing the outage was due to a faulty piece of network equipment at one of its substations requiring the power to be switched off.
Hi Tori. It is quite incredible just how far reaching this can be. It was a 'Primary' substation that was affected, this can then have a domino effect as it can affect secondary and the localised substations so it can go quite far. It appears it was some equipment that faulted>>
— UK Power Networks (@UKPowerNetworks) October 21, 2019
But the problems are not over - the tunnel that runs under The Galleria shopping centre in Hatfield has been shut both ways for hours due to the power problems.
#A1M #HatfieldTunnel Both North and South Closed due to a power related incident affecting the safety features of the Tunnel
— Highways England (@HighwaysEAST) October 21, 2019
Engineers are on site, the tunnels will be re-opened once power is restored#Hatfiled #Welwyn #Roehyde
Engineers have been on site assessing the safety of the tunnel - the A1 has finally reopened in both directions after it was shut for more than six hours.
Roads across Hatfield, St Albans, and Welham Green were gridlocked, with tailbacks stretching for miles in both directions on the A1.
Traffic is now beginning to clear.
DELAYS: #Hatfield #WelwynGardenCity and #StAlbans delays in these areas due to Hatfield Tunnel Closure on A1M, still very heavy traffic in all these areas due to the closure. pic.twitter.com/uqmrVHit8X
— HCC Highways (@Herts_Highways) October 21, 2019
Last night, Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue said it took many calls after the power cut but warned people it was not a 999 issue.
We are receiving reports that a large area of Hertfordshire including Hatfield, St Albans and Borehamwood have experienced a power cut. We are receiving a lot of calls at this moment in time - please only call us if there is an emergency situation.
— Herts Fire Control (@HertsFRSControl) October 20, 2019
Power Cut? You can contact us 24/7 either by calling 105 or texting POWER and your postcode to 80876. pic.twitter.com/zJSMvframd
— UK Power Networks (@UKPowerNetworks) August 9, 2019
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