04/01/2012 Newsnight Scotland

finger on. It is a debate that is Tonight on Newsnight Scotland,

thousands of people are facing a second night without power after

the most significant damage to the electricity network in over a

decade. We'll hear from one of the main energy companies. And what can

we learn from yet bit of extreme weather? Do we now need to invest

to help the country to stand up better - or have we all just become

too used to expecting that the comforts we rely on will be there

all the time? Good evening. About 20,000

households remain without power tonight after the storm yesterday

proved more powerful and more damaging than anyone predicted.

We'll be asking whether anything could or should be done to make the

country better able to withstand such storms, or whether we should

be prepared simply to put up with it. But first, David Allison looks

at the efforts made today to get thing back to normal. At new year

we are used to that morning after feeling, but maybe not like this.

The big clear-up is on the way in Scotland. Some of it can only be

done on an industrial scale by heavy machinery. Mother Nature

visited with a vengeance. People have come and physically unscathed.

The first thing that hits me is the devastation for people. It is awful.

There has been no physical suffering. But what will we supper

in the future with at the shock? For many less seriously affected,

there is still work to be done to restore order. At one of point

yesterday, 100,000 people were without electricity. We generally

have trees down. We got a couple of trees back. We have to fix polls.

Many hundreds of polls were broken. We have to get the conductor's back

up on the line and restore suppliers. -- conductors. This is

fairly typical of what we're facing. Some of the damage will be

expensive, not least for insurance companies. But alongside concern

about the eventual bill, the mood seems to be one of relief. This is

the remnants of the chimney stack. There was a big chimney pot which

was intact. It came all weighed down by itself. These are the front

steps. During heavy trees is not something that can be done in an

instant. -- keyring. As road and rail services start to return to

normal and we take in the scale of yesterday's storm, the impact could

very easily have been much worse. Just before we came on air I spoke

to Scottish Hydro's Julian Reeves from their headquarters in Perth. I

began by asking him why it was proving particularly difficult to

reconnect some of his customers. Whenever we have a storm that

affects us the way this one has, where a huge number of trees have

been brought down, there are difficulties with getting to parts

of the network to carry out the repairs. This inevitably delays

when we're able to start carrying out repairs. If the wind continues

for a long period of time, it can be physically unsafe for the

engineers. While we can reconnect customers remotely from our

emergency centre, we do have to get men out there working on the

network to get some customers reconnected. Until it is safe to do

so, that gives us a problem. What is the main problem? Is it that you

have trees falling on power lines? Is that the main source of these

power cuts? Is it the bits of kit that had been damaged by the wind?

No. Electricity network is capable of dealing with wind speeds in

excess of those we have seen this week. It is a combination of trees

and other wind borne of debris that is the problem. We have had

everything from garden sheds two caravans breaking polls and

bringing conductors down. there's a bolster the regulations

that you cannot put power lines a certain distance from a tree, or

plant at three close to a power line? -- plant a tree? Yes, there

are safe limits within which we have to keep trees cut back from

overhead lines. Those limits are designed to keep the general public

safe, to stop children climbing trees and being able to touch lines.

It would be impossible in most parts of rural Scotland to have

electricity networks where there are no trees within four lane

distance of the lines themselves. A lot of our lines are carried across

plantation forests. Many people will be familiar with this. As the

trees grow taller, the risk of them falling on the lines increases.

think we have got 20,000 families still without power. When do you

think they will be reconnected? Within the Scottish Hydro area, we

think that by the time the engineers have stood down for the

night tonight, which will be close to midnight, we will have the

number of customers still without power downpour about 3,000. The

engineers will be out first thing in the morning. We will work hard

to reconnect those customers. We are confident that all but a small

handful will have their power restored tomorrow.

I also spoke to Phil Flanders from Perth, who is from the Road Haulage

Association. I asked him why some hauliers had took to the roads

yesterday when it wasn't safe to do so. The severe weather warning did

not come through and have about half past eight. Many of the lorry

drivers were on their journey by then. I praise them highly for

their skills and the fact there were only eight that overturned.

That was about the same as it was on the 7th and 8th December.

individual drivers have discretion to stop driving in a situation like

that? Health and safety comes first. The majority of hauliers would

always take the word of the driver. If the driver was unsafe, they

would allow the driver to stop. It could be just as mad dash back it

could be just as bad not moving. We had an issue the last time with

livestock vehicles because not only have you got a high-sided vehicle,

you have animal-welfare. In theory, that lorry driver should go find

somewhere safe to off load the livestock. In situations like

yesterday it is not practical. does it feel like, how do you know

if you're driving an articulated truck, that this win is getting

dangerous? -- wind. You can feel the truck moving. It depends on the

kind of a load you have. If you have got in a heavy load, you're

less susceptible to the wind. It is mostly the empty ones or the light

ones that get captured by the wind. Most of the vehicles yesterday that

tipped over were empty. It is a very difficult situation to gauge.

You can feel it in a car. With a lorry, it depends on the type of

road, the type of conditions and how heavy the load is. It is not an

easy job. I think all praise should go to the lorry drivers on the

roads, not only in the high winds but in the conditions we face.

have an agreement with the Scottish Government that was discussed last

year, first snow and ice. It has now been extended for a high winds.

Is that agreement working? This is an agreement that you would

voluntarily stop driving under certain conditions? We agree with

the Scottish Government that we would put Howard bulletins to the

hauliers in our membership to let them know and they would have to

make their own judgment as to whether it was safe. We have been

speaking to transport Scotland regularly. We have a meeting soon

to discuss an update on what has been happening. We will look at

other options. The problem yesterday was what, you got the

warnings to Lake? I don't think anybody expected what we got

yesterday. Everybody knew there were high winds coming but not to

the degree we got them. We need to take cognisance of what happened

yesterday and look ahead, which is why we will be having discussions

Snow, rain and now hurricane-force winds seemed to be battering

Scotland on a far more regular basis. Unpredictable and

unprecedented storms, and yet we as a country want everything back to

normal as quickly as possible. We want a UN -- we seem unwilling to

accept allies can be -- our lives can be turned upside-down by

weather, and we also wants to point the finger quickly and blame people.

It was not always like this. This was one of central Scotland's

worst natural disasters. The Great Storm of 1968. 20 people were

killed, 2000 were left homeless, but yet no one blamed the Met

Office or the power companies or the government. In the last two

years, several storms have battered -- battered this country. First it

was this snow. Millions of pounds have been spent on more snowploughs.

then this year, the wind. Something has changed in 40 years. When

things go wrong, we want them put right again, not next week, not

tomorrow, but today. We have measured these things, and over the

past -- past 40 years there has been an increase in every decade of

selfishness, low levels of all Tristan and an increase in

selfishness. Every generation is more narcissistic and selfish and

less altruistic than the one that came before them. Hundreds of

engineers have battle to restore power supplies. Network Rail had to

remove 856 trees from tracks. And the complaints rolled in. Over 1000

calls to Scottish Power alone in the last 24 hours. He Freud has a

thing when he says, in the end, we all have to die. There is no point

sticking out a manager at to complain, because they cannot do

anything to stop it. It is deep within us that there is a manager

to complain is, -- complained to, and nowadays you can go online and

complain in many different ways many times. The damage has been to

there and it has shown how vulnerable we have become. -- the

damage has been severe. Will it change the way we build? All of the

buildings that tuck hanging off trees are light weight. In some

ways, we have to think about producing things that are heavier

and held down. This storm is said to be the worst in a generation. A

generation more reliant on modern comforts. Without them, we may feel

vulnerable. But with them, I'll be happier? We are less nice, we're

more selfish and narcissistic. We are also less conformist. We are

more creative. In a funny way, we might even be happier because

happiness comes with individuality. And at least there are still some

out there who have found something to do without the aid of

electricity. Just cuddle up, Peter, then! That all we can do! Cuddle up

for the day! We are joined from Edinburgh by a

Alan Fowler, chair of Iso-Cron, a management consultancy and an

expert in planning. Hit in Glasgow is Charlie Maclean-Bristol, from

Plan B Consulting which specialises in resilience and crisis management.

The we agree with the professor that we have all become

narcissistic and expect everything to work? I think I do. I think if

we look forward and say, how would we live in a society that didn't

react to storms in a way that we have seen, we have to ask, how

would we reverse that? We are very interested in creating a futures

which other resolution of the problems we encounter today. What

do you mean by that? Well, for example, in the case of this storm,

we would say it let's look at what we did not like at the way we

reacted to. Consider the opposite was the case, that Scotland was

renowned for its resilience to unexpected events. And ask

ourselves, if that were the case, what would it look like and how

would we have got there? In particular day, we have been

experimenting for eight years with planning not forwards in the

present but backwards from an imagined future. OK, I think I am

getting this. What is the conclusion? If you did that, what

conclusions do you come to? What we have found in the eight years of

case studies we have done, largely in commercial environments, is that

we get some surprising conclusions about what to do. I have very

little doubt that in the case of the storm, and preparation for

storms, we would find that the secret lies in how not to change

public perception and public values -- how to change public perception

and public values, very much reversing what the professor said.

Do you agree with that? I think I do. I think we have to take the

storm in context. The thing about the storm is to say, it brings it

all to our minds, but there are small disasters going on every day.

There are factories burning down, floods, there are lots of other

events. I think what we must not do his chase the last disaster. I was

in a supermarket and everyone was buying madly snow shovels, and we

find out in the next instant it was the wind. I think businesses and

organisations need to prepare for disasters, all the time, not just

when it is in the public focus like this thing. I think we need to do

more to prepare. There is one obvious point to make about this.

It is deeply inconvenient and can - distressing for people to have

their power cut-off for so long. This is not a disaster in any

meaningful sense. Two people died, one in the English Channel and one

in Kent yesterday. A few people were in hospital from a caravan

site in Argyll. It is not exactly like the judge -- Japan nuclear

disaster. Know, but there will be the local firms, had been disasters,

perhaps from the power cuts their computers have gone and they will

not go back on again. Computers do not like just been turned off.

There will be all these hidden disasters behind here that will

never make the news. They will have a big impact on the business.

are hidden economic problems, not disasters. It could be a disaster

for that particular company. It could put it out of business. If

they are fulfilling their January orders and they cannot find them on

their computers, that could be a major disaster and put them out of

business. I am still, I still don't quite understand what you are

saying. You said, we should take the lesson of this storm to change

people's expectations. Change them how? What is it you want to change?

What we have got to first step -- set-up is how we would have liked

to have reacted. A you have said that before. All right, let's say

we would like to have reacted better, would you conclude?

conclude from that that each individual needs to be more

prepared. Charlie made this point. More prepared for what they would

do if... Individuals need to keep in mind what can happen and become

personally prepared for it. Instead of rushing out the snow shovel

because there has just been a heavy snowfall, perhaps always to keep a

shovel available as a lot of people do. Your point about timing,

perhaps, tying in with Charlie Maclean-Bristol's., would be not

worrying too -- worrying about buying a Serb -- a snow shovel but

worry about your computer having surge protection. We have

businesses that do this. Ossicles - - hospitals have to keep going

through fire, as quick and flat, so they have back-up generators. We

have become habits lazy and leave it to other people to deal with. I

was staying with friends, they could not access the internet

because the power was off but then we realised we had mobile phones.

Obviously, you can be personally more prepared. But there are

certain things like, people were, they were not complaining but they

were upset that they could not fly to London or take the train to

London yesterday. That is not, you cannot beat more personally

prepared for that. No, I think we have to accept that some of these

things happen. That goes in life. These storms do not happen that

often. And I think we sort of forget about them every so often,

and it takes the storm to remind us that we actually should have

prepared for it. We had a very short power cut before the big

power cut here, and actually, we were madly running around to find

torches and candles. When the power cut came, which was a much longer

one, we were prepared. These things remind us of our fallibility. We

cannot have all these things all the time. I agree with Alan's..

People need to be better prepared and aware of that. Is there some

new research, Alan Fowler, that being better prepared from an

organisation's point of view, say, for the public sector for weather,

it is not necessarily just about spending more money. I am making

this example up. Let's say, you might conclude from the snow and

ice this time last year, but you necessarily have to buy hundreds

more snowploughs. You might have learnt the lesson of where things

were worst, of why you might want to park the snowploughs. That is

absolutely right. What we have found in the last four years, we

are doing work in the public sector, is that often the solution lies

with changing the public's perceptions. With making the public

feel more responsible for their own circumstances, and a little less

dependent on local authorities and government to do things for them.

So it is that personal preparation, and a personal sense of

responsibility which probably lie on the path to a better reaction to

storms like this. But organisations can be better prepared for scripted

and to have some example about ambulance waiting times in England,

that they found if they have put the ambulances in different places,

they were much better? That is quite right. Some years ago, there

were target for ambulance response times for accidents. I think it was

around the Birmingham area, the authority decided that the right

way to do this was to find out where the accident happened and

position the ambulances close to the site. That way you could get

there fast response times. We also find that the backward planning

produces smart or clever solutions which have not otherwise been

considered. So that is what you don't mean by it backward, do you

agree with that? Yes, I think you can he do that, but we have not

talked about communication. Communication from the government

have done a lot better, they have been caught out in the past. It is

businesses that need to communicate better. I remember when the floods

happened, in Cornwall, there was a famous story of a travel agent who

ran out of his shop with a computer under one arm, and telephone under

another, set up in his house and was running his business. I went on

his website and he did not have anything on his website saying, I