FURIOUS residents say their lives have been made a “living nightmare” by a power cut in their street.

Twelve homes on Maes Y Dre, Flint, have been without electricity since Wednesday afternoon, leaving residents having to bathe in cold water.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pounds worth of food has become inedible because fridges and freezers have shut down and Scottish Power has moved into the street with diggers to try to sort out the problem.

Resident Catherine Davies, 37, is a full-time carer for her sister Claire.

The pair have five children between them.

“Claire has narcolepsy which means she can fall asleep at any given moment,” Catherine told the Leader.

“So I cook for the two families. We have three freezers full of food that has just been destroyed. That is over £200 worth of food.”

The ordeal is magnified for Catherine’s daughter Michaela, 19, who has just returned home after a three-day stay in hospital.

“All she wants to do is enjoy a long bath and watch TV,” she added. “But she can’t even do that.”

Mum Sally Davies, 25, is concerned that the half-term holidays will be spoiled for her children.

“It is a living nightmare,” she said “It is made 10 times worse that the children are off school. The TV is not working and their games consoles have no battery life and we can’t even charge them.

“Now the workmen are telling me they have to rip up my garden fence so they can dig a hole.”

The cost of the power cut is totting up for residents and Scottish Power has agreed to pay £54 to each family for any inconvenience caused.

Mother-of-four Angela Mills, 42, says that this is simply not enough.

“We had to visit a McDonald’s restaurant for our tea last night and it cost me £25,” she said.

“All the ice creams in the freezer have melted so I will have to replace them too.

“There is nothing we can do apart from sit and wait.”

A spokesman for Scottish Power said: “We got a call at 4.50pm on Wednesday and have 12 properties without power at the moment.

“It is a cable fault and engineers have been working on it.

“It has taken a while to get the exact route of the fault.

“They will have to cut into a section of the cable in order to repair it.

“We can usually connect residents to another power supply but because of this specific location, we were unable to do that.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”