A family was forced to leave their home for days after Storm Arwen left them without power for days.
Mum Helen Shaw says they lost electricity at 11.30pm on Friday night, which also knocked off the combi boiler at their house in Tennyson Road, Pelton Fell, Chester-le-Street.
With no hot water or lighting in the property, Helen, her four-year-old son and partner John Dodd felt they had no choice but to find other accommodation.
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They stayed with relatives, including her mum and brother, until power was finally restored. Helen said she found out the lights were back on at 6.30pm on Tuesday and the family returned home on Wednesday.
Helen, who works at Sainsbury's, said the four days had been a "nightmare" for them. During that time, her son developed a cold and a cough.
The 31-year-old said: "We had to find somewhere else to live. We had no electricity, no hot water, no heating.
"Our combi-boiler stopped working and we have an electric cooker. My whole fridge and freezer had to be thrown away.
"I have a four-year-old son. We just couldn't stay in our home in those conditions and decided to leave.
"I stayed with my mum and then at my brother's place. And I was juggling all that while trying to work full time.
"My son also developed a cough and a bit of a cold. It has been awful."
Helen said she struggled to get updates on when their power would be restored. She went to check her home after work on Tuesday and the power had returned. She was able to take her son back on Wednesday.
"I know there's not much we can do about the weather and the storm caused a lot of damage," she added.
"But it has been awful for us. I was worried about my son and we didn't know what was going to happen or how long it was going to be before we could go back home."
A Northern Powergrid spokeswoman confirmed it was aware of a power cut affecting some customers in Pelton Fell.
She added: “Across our business, we have suspended routine activities to support our storm response and have deployed over 100 people to contact our affected customers or help with welfare support in worst-affected communities.
“We have further bolstered our contact centre with support from other energy networks and we have added additional capacity to our website power cut checker to meet the increased demand.
“We do understand and appreciate peoples’ growing frustrations and we are very sorry for the continued impact to our customers’ lives. We thank them for their patience and understanding.”
