A Welsh Water spokesperson: “We are analysing the findings of the reports published today and are considering how we can best respond to the issues raised to further improve in future.
“The scale of the issues we faced during Storm Emma, combined with the effect of the “Beast from the East”, was unprecedented – with our operating area at the centre of the Met Office’s ‘red’ weather warning. Extreme snowfall, high winds, and a rapid thaw led to enormous challenges as we tried to maintain our services to support affected customers. Accessing our sites was extremely difficult, at the same time as managing a record number of bursts on our network and at customers’ properties.
“Despite these challenges, and thanks to the heroic efforts of colleagues who worked around the clock throughout the period, we were able to maintain water supplies to around 99% of our customers throughout the period. Independent research carried out with affected customers after the incident showed 70% were satisfied with how we responded, versus 10% who were not.
“However, we always consider how we can do things better and have identified areas where we could improve. We are already investing to improve the resilience of our water network to further protect customers’ supplies and will redouble our efforts to identify and help even more of our vulnerable customers.
“We want to apologise again to all customers who experienced disruption to their water supplies and assure them that we will work with local communities, the regulators and the wider water in-dustry to learn lessons so that we are better prepared for similar events in future.”
“The scale of the issues we faced during Storm Emma, combined with the effect of the “Beast from the East”, was unprecedented – with our operating area at the centre of the Met Office’s ‘red’ weather warning. Extreme snowfall, high winds, and a rapid thaw led to enormous challenges as we tried to maintain our services to support affected customers. Accessing our sites was extremely difficult, at the same time as managing a record number of bursts on our network and at customers’ properties.
“Despite these challenges, and thanks to the heroic efforts of colleagues who worked around the clock throughout the period, we were able to maintain water supplies to around 99% of our customers throughout the period. Independent research carried out with affected customers after the incident showed 70% were satisfied with how we responded, versus 10% who were not.
“However, we always consider how we can do things better and have identified areas where we could improve. We are already investing to improve the resilience of our water network to further protect customers’ supplies and will redouble our efforts to identify and help even more of our vulnerable customers.
“We want to apologise again to all customers who experienced disruption to their water supplies and assure them that we will work with local communities, the regulators and the wider water in-dustry to learn lessons so that we are better prepared for similar events in future.”