A chum of mine wrote this in a forum after Storm Arwen.
Yesterday morning the power seemed to be a bit below par, so I checked it with my tester, to reveal only 139 volts. Not had that before, it is usually all or nothing. We have our own 11,000 v cable (cost a fortune 40 years ago) running alongside our driveway (¼ mile) with transformer on pole near house. Discovered a Christmas tree had been blown over from our neighbour's land and snapped one of the two cables between two of the poles. The long end (from house) was lying on the grass and the short end (from supply) was dangling with the end about 6ft AGL - all still live 
and there's a public footpath next to the line.
The private 11 kV line has two wires so I assume that it is single phase although I have no idea where the neutral is connected. I do not know how the LV is distributed.
A 2 kW kettle would have a resistance of 26 Ω so it would draw 5.3 A at 139 V. In turn, that would draw 110 mA at 11 kV so it is conceivable that it was getting back to the transformer via terra firma.
I get a bit worried when people notice that the lights are dim, the kettle is slow, etc. and then get out a volt meter. Then they assume that the line voltage has dropped. A lay person might also reasonably assume that the cable at the house end would be dead.
