Resilience arrangements for Shetland

The Scottish Government Resilience Room has met to discuss the impacts of power outages in Shetland.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown, lead Minister for resilience said:

“The challenging circumstances facing parts of Shetland have been declared a major incident and, while SSEN is making every effort to restore supplies, it is clear that many properties will face days without power.

“This afternoon I chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGoRR) with our multi-agency partners to make every effort to restore power and support households.

“Sumburgh airport has now reopened and we are working with SSEN and transport operators to maximise capacity. We expect more SSEN engineers will arrive early tomorrow morning and will continue to do what we can to get as many staff and as much equipment to Shetland as needed, as early as possible.

“Our utmost priority must be to ensure that people, especially the most vulnerable, are safe and warm. SSEN have contacted all priority customers and Shetland Islands Council has identified vulnerable people who may need extra support. It is also considering how buildings such as community centres could be used to provide respite centres if needed.

“I would urge people to heed the Police Scotland advice to stay at home, find ways to stay warm, check in on neighbours, friends and family, and listen to the local radio or follow social media for updates.”