A Perthshire community left without power for 69 hours in the wake of Storm Arwen fears someone will die unless more help is offered in future.
People in Strathardle and Glenshee had no electricity, water or phone signal over the weekend.
And on Monday, they woke up to snow and ice with no way for a gritter to get through due to fallen trees.
Now there are calls to set up an emergency resilience group to help people in need during future emergencies.
Colin Reid, development officer with Mount Blair Community Trust, said: “It must have been very scary for some people.
“Someone will die in a situation like this, I’m sure of it.”
Meanwhile, a Perthshire councillor has expressed frustration that there is no central point for people to access information.
Blairgowrie and Glens SNP councillor Tom McEwan is one of 24,000 people across Perthshire and Angus still without power.
‘Extremely difficult’ situation
Mr Reid has already discussed the need for local resilience groups with his own councillors.
“We’re used to power cuts here,” he said.
“But this time it was compounded by the fact we also had no mobile phone signals.
“That put a different spin on things because there was no way of contacting anyone unless you drove out of the area.
“And we couldn’t do that because of fallen trees. That’s made things extremely difficult.”
Power has now been restored in the area but people are still without running water.
Bottled water is being provided.
Mr Reid added: “Most places have great community spirit but that can only take you so far.
“If people can’t heat themselves in sub-zero temperatures and can’t even make a phone call, who picks up the pieces?
“I’ve already had conversations with two of our local councillors saying we need some kind of system in place to react to power outages.
“That has to include other agencies like the council, the fire service, the police, water companies and SSE.”
Lack of information
Councillor McEwan doesn’t expect power to be restored to his home outside Blairgowrie until Tuesday
“That will have been four days,” he said.
“That’s the seventh communication from SSE and it keeps getting put back.”
He has dug out a camping stove and sleeping bags from the loft in a bid to keep warm overnight.
But he is finding it difficult to ascertain how many people in his ward need help.
“I would love to know that everybody has everything they need and they know where to go to get that,” he said.
“But, to be honest, I can’t share that information with them because it’s not being shared with me. It’s very frustrating.
“That’s one of the things I’ll be feeding back to Perth and Kinross Council because we really need someone to set up a central point where people can find out what’s going on.”
Council released as much information as possible
Individual resilience groups did swing into action across Perthshire.
And teams were in place to provide hot meals and water where it was needed.
I want to thank all the people who have been out.”
Perth and Kinross Council leader Murray Lyle.
It was provided by a combination of SSE, Perth and Kinross Council and volunteers.
Council leader Murray Lyle praised all of those who helped but conceded discussions were needed on how to work smarter in future.
“I want to thank all the people who have been out,” he said.
“SSE operatives have been out trying to fix things in all weathers. They’ve drafted in people from all over the country.
“I also thank the council for local resilience teams who helped people who were vulnerable.
“They were put on standby on Friday and were only stood down yesterday.”
Mr Lyle said the council tried to put out as much information as possible.
“We released regular bulletins as we were getting it form SSE and Scottish Water but there were challenges around that,” he said.
“It’s something we can think about discussing with them in future about how we can work more strategically together.”
