Thousands of homes in the Chester area were left without power last night (Wednesday) as relentless rain and gale force storms battered the country.
And while Cheshire woke up to the calm after the storm this morning, both Tarporley High School and Tarporley C of E Primary School have announced they will remain closed today.
A statement on the Tarporley High School & Sixth Form College website says: "The school will be closed today (February 13) due to there being no electricity at school. We will continue to keep you updated about the situation via this website, text, email and Twitter."
A similar statement on the Tarporley Church of England Primary School website says: "Due to health and safety reasons (no power, heating or hot water) school will be closed today. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause and we hope that you all stay warm and safe. We will do everything we can to open school tomorrow and we will inform you via the website and text messaging service. Thank you for your understanding and continual support."
Closures have also been announced at Farndon Primary, Delamere Primary and Kelsall Primary. Dorin Park School has closed due to boiler faults.
Meanwhile, the designer shopping outlet at Cheshire Oaks in Ellesmere Port, which closed early last night due to the high winds, has yet to decide whether to open as normal this morning.
Thousands of homes remained in darkness last night as a result of the high winds which reached speeds between 80-100 mph.
A spokesperson for Scottish Power told The Chronicle last night they were doing everything they could to reconnect the supply but that the dangerous conditions were hampering their efforts.
"We can confirm that approximately 9,000 homes in the mid Cheshire area, that is Chester and the surrounding areas, are without power due to severe winds," the spokesman said.
"We have seen fierce conditions this afternoon and we will we doing all we can to get customers back on as quickly as possible. However, with high winds such as these it is dangerous for our engineers to be out in such conditions. But we are working as quickly as we can."
Most homes were reconnected by about 1.30am today (Thursday).
