Online Safety

(From BT press release)

Despite extremely difficult weather conditions in the North West of England, work is progressing well on the major BT works to restore and safeguard phone and broadband services in flood-affected Cumbria.

At the site of the collapsed Northside Bridge where fibre optic and copper cables were swept away, a 'round the clock' BT operation is expected to complete, in little more than a week, a job which would normally take up to three months.

Phone services to about 1,500 homes in the Flimby, Siddick and north Workington areas are expected to be restored by end of Friday. The work includes the installation of about four kilometres of new network and the laying of about 1,300 metres of underground ducting on a new route across a nearby railway bridge.

Further upstream, engineers will soon begin tunnelling under the River Derwent using a thrust boring device in order to provide an alternative route for optical fibre and copper cables threatened by the possible collapse of Calva Bridge, which has been declared unsafe. Cables running across Calva Bridge serving about 2,000 homes and businesses are continuing to operate normally at present.

In Cockermouth today, a taskforce of BT engineers was visiting premises and de-silting and cleaning the underground network contaminated by the flooding; and one of BT's emergency response vehicles, using state-of-the-art satellite and broadband communications, has been stationed in the centre of the town. Temporary phone services were also provided within 12 hours for 12 Cockermouth businesses forced to relocate to nearby vacant offices.

BT's Incident Management Team is fully mobilised and working around the clock and liaising closely with the local emergency services to restore services to customers as quickly as possible. About 200 BT engineers are involved in the 24/7 repair operation. Phone services to the majority of homes and businesses initially affected by the flooding had been restored within 12 hours.

It is likely, however, that some service disruption will continue while conditions remain difficult and until water levels in some areas subside.

 Pictures from Young Motors Ambleside all pictures are from Ambleside and Rydal area.