STARTLED residents woke with a bang before being left without power and heating for nearly two days.

A total of 84 homes were affected by a massive power surge in the Chase, Billericay.

Carole Brown awoke with a fright when about 20 of the electrical appliances around her home exploded.

She said: “I had to get my husband, who is disabled, out of bed to evacuate the house because everything was catching fire. It was a nightmare.”

Fourteen homes in the cul-de-sac were left without electricity for around 37 hours following an underground cable fault.

Engineers, from EDF, managed to reconnect the other 70 homes by 9pm that night.

A 64-year-old woman said she was angry after no-one at EDF kept residents up to date with the repairs or visited homes to make sure they had provisions.

She said: “Of the 14 homes left without power for 37 hours, 12 of those have people living there are over 60, two people who are over 80 and two are disabled.

“EDF really should employ somebody who can knock at houses and ask if people are disabled or need treatment or food and drink.

“If it wasn’t for the neighbours gathering together to make sure everybody was OK. I don’t know what we would have done.

“The whole thing was a total mess. ”

Power was finally restored to all the homes by Sunday morning.

Tracey Sparling, spokeswoman for EDF, said: “Our engineers restored power to the majority of customers affected by 11.20pm on Friday.

“Then on Saturday our specialist contractors visited the remaining 14 customers to carry to out safety checks before power could be restored.

“We appreciate how difficult being without power is and we keep details of our most vulnerable customers on our priority services register.”