On 19 June 2018, U.K. water sector regulator Ofwat released a review of water company performance during the ‘Beast from the East’, a freeze thaw event that wreaked havoc on water utilities across the country in late February and early March 2018. The storm left over 200,000 customers without supply for more than four hours, and over 60,000 for more than 12 hours.

While ‘resilience’ was already at the core of Ofwat’s PR19 guidance documents, the ‘Beast from the East’ offers a case study in both company readiness and regulatory expectation.