ABOUT 17,000 homes in Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire were still without electricity last night after storms brought down overhead lines.

Engineers had worked through the night to restore power to tens of thousands of homes across the region.

CE Electric, the region's electricity distributor, said it was continuing to deploy every resource available.

Operations director Mike Leighton said: "We've not experienced conditions like this for 20 years or more.

"What's more, our engineers have also had to deal with road closures and some extremely dangerous working conditions.

"It is a testament to their hard work and skill that they have been able to restore the number of customers they have."

More than 80,000 properties were affected immediately after Thursday's storm.

Engineers worked flat out to restore power to thousands of buildings the same day and overnight.

A further 3,000 were restored yesterday.