Worried residents near Bridgnorth entered their third day without electricity today as engineers struggled to repair damaged cables across the county.

The village of Monkhopton, near Morville, was one of the worst-hit areas, with dozens of householders still without power following the damaging storms which hit the UK on Thursday.

Parts of the Stottesdon area were also cut off, with telephone lines down as well as electricity cables.

Andrea and Vince McWilliams, who have a three-year-old daughter Jessica, said power at their Monkhopton home went off at about 9am on Thursday.”It was quite good fun to begin with, but it’s becoming a drag now,” Mrs McWilliams said.

“I was really getting concerned yesterday, so we went to a farmer friend of ours and borrowed a generator, which is now powering our freezer.

“I know the electricity companies are over-run, but they need to update their recorded messages a bit more. I rang this morning and it said it would be updated this evening, which isn’t very good really.

“We do understand we are in a rural area, so we are not going to be first on the list for repairs. We just hope it won’t be too much longer.”

Hundreds of people across Shropshire and Mid Wales have been making insurance claims following the fierce storms, brokers said today.

Staff at Bridgnorth insurance company, Bryan and Knott, said they had been experiencing “considerably more” phone calls than usual. Others are expecting even more calls from householders and businesses to flood in the next week.

But people were warned they may not be insured for some storm damage – particularly if they only have basic cover.

Ed Fensome, of Bryan and Knott, said: “The main thing people have been calling about is roof damage, but quite a few people have been calling about the power cuts as well.”

Central Networks, the electricity distribution company for central England, reassured people engineers were working as hard as possible to restore power to the remaining 250 homes in Shropshire which were still cut off.

By Simon Alton