Thousands of York homes and businesses have been left without phone and internet services, after flood damage created a “ghost town” where shops and bars are reportedly only taking cash.
Flooding in the city knocked out the power to BT’s York exchange on Sunday afternoon, and the company said it was still working to restore services 24 hours later.
The problems appear to have impacted on banking and payment services in the city, with @AliTheTyke tweeting: “York is like a ghost town. Nowhere accepting card and no cash machines working”. Meanwhile, @helbradley said: “If you’re heading into #york remember to take your Christmas money from Santa. Cash machines down and cash only in loads of shops/bars/cafés”.
York is like a ghost town. Nowhere accepting card and no cash machines working. #yorkfloods #firstworldproblems
— Ali (@AliTheTyke) December 28, 2015
A BT spokesman added: “Severe flooding in the Yorkshire area has resulted in the loss of some phone and broadband services. The York BT exchange has been damaged by flood water and our engineers are currently working to restore the building’s power supply with support from the emergency services. Openreach engineers have been supporting the recovery work and are working flat out to restore services as soon as possible.”
Spokespeople for Natwest, Lloyds and Yorkshire Bank said they were unaware of their cash machines being affected. Barclays and HSBC did not respond to efforts to contact them.
