Cut

Sheffield has been top of the news agenda for the last few days, following the torrential rains and fatal flooding which punished the city at the weekend and on Monday in particular. Broomhill, where I live, was unaffected: indeed, walking around its streets on Tuesday morning, you could be forgiven for being absolutely unaware of the terrible situation on the other side of town.

Walking to work on Monday, just as the rains became heaviest at around mid-day, I got absolutely soaked. In true comedy style, this was aided by a bus driving through a large puddle next to where I was walking. I hurried on to work, hoping I could sneak in through the front door unnoticed, race upstairs to the staff room and dry myself off before anyone noticed. Unfortunately, I was greeted by everyone standing just inside the (locked) doors because there was a power cut.

Since then, the electricity supply has been subject to various planned and surprise outages, as the authorities attempt to restore utilities for everyone. This meant spending the best part of four hours sitting in the dark at the Co-op yesterday, as without power there's no tills. All we could do was wait for the lights to come on... and hope that the food in the freezers could last. Power still hadn't returned by closing time, which meant leaving the store with the shutters up and guarded only by the night staff. The disruption could last until Sunday... I wonder if we'll be working this afternoon.