Only today BT declared a Major Incident at 10:30(BST) 31/03 at their Burne House facility in North Paddington as a result of flooding.

The North Paddington site is one of the major critical hubs for the entire United Kingdom, so along with around 10,000 services affected in North/North-West/West/South-West London there are also knock on implications for other areas of the country.

All of the power transformers to the building, along with all the power for all BT and other carrier equipment located at this site are housed 4 floors below ground level in a space roughly the size of an aircraft hanger.

This entire area, 18 inches deep in water due to the flooding, was declared unsafe to work in until alternative power could be sourced.

Pumping out of the flood waters commenced at 17:00(BST) 31/03 and was completed around 02:00(BST) 01/04.

A drying process is now underway using specialist heating and dehumidifier equipment, this is expected to take between 5 - 7 days to fully complete - it is not yet known if any of the transformers are damaged.

BT do not believe that any transmission equipment has been damaged as this is all hosted on different floors, however this will all need to be thoroughly checked.

BT have currently restored temporary power to about 70% of the multiplexers in the building - however around 20% of this equipment is not working and will need to be checked in more detail.

Some services have been restored, but are deemed at risk and may fluctuate or go down again for a period of time.

BT have fully committed to continue restoration and repair work throughout the Bank Holiday and weekend periods.

The process for full restoration of services is as follows:

- Restore power to all floors ; currently running on external power,
internal power via generators to be installed today.
- Restore power to transmission equipment on all floors.
- Restore "blue light" services; police, fire, ambulance, hospitals,
999 control centres.
- Restore all other services.

As yet BT do not have a timescale or estimate as to when all of this work will be fully completed, but they have stated that restoration work is due to take place from 12:00(BST) 01/04/2010.

We will provide further information and estimates of BT service recovery once they are known.