More than 15,500 homes in the northern England and Scotland are facing power cuts.
Image source, SSEN
Thousands of people are still without power in Scotland and northern England six days after Storm Arwen.
Energy companies said power cuts still affected more than 13,000 homes in the north of England, while 3,100 in Scotland were without power on Thursday.
About 120 military personnel are being drafted in to help the recovery effort in Aberdeenshire.
Three people died as the storm brought high winds and cold weather on Friday.
In some cases energy suppliers have found emergency accommodation and provided generators and food vans to support communities without power.
But some residents have criticised utility companies for “woeful” communication and have said they felt “forgotten”.
On Wednesday about 30,000 homes were waiting to be reconnected.
Northern Powergrid said 11,000 properties were still affected by power cuts, but said its engineers had restored supplies to 229,000 customers.
Electricity North West (ENWL) said power had been restored to all but about 3,000 properties, mostly in Cumbria, as of 10:10 GMT on Thursday.
Image source, ENWL
Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) said 2,500 customers remained without power after what it has described as “once in a generation event”.
The last homes in Wales that were still without power following the storm were reconnected on Wednesday.
ENWL’s incident manager and customer director Stephanie Trubshaw said in terms of network damage Storm Arwen had been the “most damaging storm the North West has had this century and the UK has seen since 1987”.
She said the company had made significant progress overnight and would be deploying further resources in Cumbria to restore power.
The company said emergency accommodation for up to 300 people had been found in the county while food vans and community hubs were continuing to provide hot drinks, food and charging points.
Northern Powergrid’s Jim Cardwell said it would not be able to restore all supplies by the weekend, especially in more remote areas.
SSE said it aimed to reconnect all customers by Friday but that some small pockets of properties might not have power restored until Saturday.
Aberdeenshire Council said 120 military personnel would carry out welfare checks on people left without power.
In the south of Scotland most customers have been reconnected but there are still pockets of problems.
Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) apologised to anyone who was left without power for a sixth night.
Sara Stanley, from Medburn in Northumberland, told BBC News she had been without power until Tuesday when, after pressure from residents, a generator was provided for her estate.
“It’s been a bit grim,” she said. “I tested positive for Covid last Friday so I haven’t been very well at all and on top of that the cold was not great.”
She said the initial advice had been to go to a hotel or stay with relatives but she was not able to as she was required to self-isolate.
If it was not for the generator she said she would “probably have been in hospital because I was struggling to breathe as it was”.
Clare Pennington, from Newtyle in Angus, said she was on her sixth day without power and was staying in a static home because she is building a house.
She told the PA news agency she felt “totally forgotten”.
“It was freezing last night, too cold to sleep,” she said. “We haven’t even got anyone scheduled to come and assess the situation yet so it could be next week before we’re back with power.”
Tony and Nicola Hills from Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, have had to move out as they and their five children were “struggling to keep warm, washed and properly fed”.
In a letter to his MP Mr Hills described ENWL’s call centres and IT systems as “woefully inadequate”, adding that he had received a text saying they had been reconnected when they had not.
