Main points
- More than 800,000 homes and businesses on island of Ireland are without power
- Met Éireann warns worst yet to come for much of northern half of country and the midlands
- Gusts of 183km/h have been recorded in Foynes, Co Limerick
- Vodafone says around 90,000 homes are without broadband currently
- No public transport will operate while red level warnings are in force
- People are advised to avoid all non-essential travel during the red warnings
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
When does the red warning start in my area?
Best Reads
- How serious is a red weather warning, and how should I prepare?
- How will Storm Éowyn impact Dublin?
- How will Storm Éowyn impact Cork?
- A survival guide for parents working from home during Storm Eówyn
- Working through Storm Éowyn: Safety ‘has to prevail’
Some 93,000 homes and businesses across Northern Ireland are without electricity and police there have said there are more than 70 reports of trees down and other obstructions on the roads. Flights have also been cancelled, including 16 departures and 16 arrivals at Belfast International Airport and 23 departures and 20 arrivals at Belfast City Airport.
Irish Water has said that water treatment plants that serve around 115,000 homes have lost power. While the plants have reserves, people have been asked to conserve water over the course of the day to ensure that the reserves don’t run out. People can find real time info on the supply in their area here.
The full statement from ESB Networks paints a very grim picture of what is happening across the country right now.
“Extreme, damaging and destructive winds associated with Storm Éowyn have continued to cause widespread and extensive damage to the electricity network across the country with over 715,000 homes, farms and businesses (as at 8:00 a.m.) without power.
“With Met Éireann Status Red and Orange wind warnings remaining in place for the entire country until later this afternoon, more power outages can be expected throughout the day as the storm tracks northwards.
“At current numbers, the damage to the electricity network and impact on customers has been unprecedented. ESB Networks continue to closely monitor the storm impact on power supplies and all available resources stand ready to mobilise once safe to do so.
“From our experience of previous significant weather events and due to the severity of Storm Éowyn, we expect that power restoration will take a significant number of days.
Given the extent of the damage nationwide estimated restoration times (ERTs) will only be provided once our teams have assessed network faults and these will then be available to view throughout Saturday on www.PowerCheck.ie.
Our Customer Contact Centre Agents will be supporting customers throughout Storm Éowyn but will not be in a position to provide outage information until the network assessment has been fully conducted.
An Important Public Safety Message: If you come across fallen wires or damaged electricity network, never, ever touch or approach these as they are LIVE and extremely dangerous. Please report any damage to electricity infrastructure by calling 1800 372 999.”
At least 715,000 homes and businesses around the Republic are currently without power, the ESB have just confirmed. To put that number into context, just under 400,000 homes and businesses were left without power during Storms Darragh and Ophelia. ESB Networks is also warning that the number is likely to increase.
It’s pretty wild in Clare this morning.
Unprecedented and widespread is how the ESB is describing the outages across the State as day breaks and while a fresh update is due in the next few minutes, as of now well over half a million properties are without power.
Public transport has ground to a halt across the country with plans to get things moving again in at least some parts of the country from around midday although that is by no means set in stone.
A serious road incident has been reported in Lifford in Co Donegal.
“Unfortunately we are attending a serious road traffic collision on the N14, just north of Lifford,” said Supt Liam Geraghty.
“We’re not in a position to give any more details at the moment until we get to the scene and we assess what has happened. This does exemplify that this is a very dangerous and life-threatening storm. This incident actually happened in an Orange wind warning in the Donegal area which has now gone to a red warning. Our appeal to people is to shelter.”
Some 600 people are in Dublin Airport’s two terminals this morning compared to around 10,000 that might there on any other Friday.
The DAA’s Graeme McQueen said that “planes can’t take off and land at the moment so nothing is happening and we’re not expecting anything certainly before just before 9am.”
He said that was when the first scheduled departure is at the moment “but given the way the winds are at the moment that’s a wait and see”.
The airlines are meeting now “to decide on their schedules for the rest of the day,” McQueen said as he urged people “to keep in touch with the airlines to find out what the status is of their flight [and] if they’re flying today”.
The vast, vast majority of flights to and from Dublin up to 9.30am have now been cancelled with many others after that point also gone.
Dublin Fire Brigade has just published an interactive map of storm-related incidents across the county.
Sheila Kavanagh from Vodafone has been on the radio saying that around 90,000 of its customers are without home broadband as a result of power outages while around 10 per cent of its mobile network sites are currently offline.
She noted that it is a “fast-progressing storm so we anticipate that the storm will pass quickly and obviously – and only when it’s safe to do so – we will be dispatching our field teams. We have tripled our field resources [so we] can deal with this storm as quickly as possible and recover services.”
The storm is still raging all over the country but as the morning progresses it will be a country of two halves with the worst still to come for the northern half of the island and a slow – very slow – easing further south.
It is important to stress that red warnings are still in place for the whole country but from around 10am winds to the south will “gradually ease”, according to forecaster Gerry Murphy.
“The main message is that north of that line roughly from west Clare to Dublin over the coming hours the winds are going to increase further.”
We are not there yet, not by a long shot.
And all the authorities are warning that even when the red warnings are lifted, the country will be under an orange warning for much of the day.
It would be impossible to detail all the roads blocked right now as a result of fallen trees but a snapshot does indicate how widespread the problems are.
The N59 on the Skreen side of Dromore West in Sligo is impassable as a result of a fallen tree. Wires are down on the same road on the approach to Ballisodare
There are multiple trees down on the N4 close to Newtownforbes, Co Longford, with the village blocked on both sides.
Most roads out of Longford have trees down while multiple incidents have also been reported in Athlone and across Dublin.
As of now, the entire island of Ireland is under a status red wind warning as a result of Storm Éowyn.
If you live close to a building site and have cranes towering over you, Sean Downey from the Construction Industry Federation has some words of comfort.
Speaking on Morning Ireland he said although “cranes would be something that would be certainly very visible if you’re living near a site that has cranes ... that’s probably something that people look at and might have a concern about. But that would not be something that would be a big concern for me. It is something that people take into account whenever they’re building the site.
“They’re traditionally part of the permanent structure of the foundations as they’re being erected and they’re actually built to withstand very, very strong winds so I would not be concerned with that at all.”
Ireland West Airport in Co Mayo will be “non-operational” until 1pm, and the airport has said all passengers due to travel on flights scheduled between 8am and 2pm should not to travel to the airport. “The terminal building will not be accessible to members of the public during this time,” it said.
Galway is a hardy old place and used to big storms, but things were looking very bad in Salthill overnight.
This tweet from Met Éireann will give you a sense of just how bad things are getting.
The senior forecaster at Met Éireann, Gerry Murphy, has just issued a sobering assessment of what is happening and what is to come with more structural damage, more power outages and more disruption on the way in the hours ahead
Speaking on Morning Ireland he said Éowyn was an “extreme storm and it has already broken records for the all-time mean wind speed and all-time gust for Ireland.”
At Mace Head in Galway at 4am there was a mean speed of 135km/h which breaks the previous record of 131km/h and at 5am there was a gust of 183km/h, which breaks the previous record of 182km/h.
“This is a very, very serious storm [and] the winds are very, very strong. As you’d expect they are strongest over the western half of the country but they’re going to be very strong right the way up through the midlands as well,” he said.
“This morning we can expect further power outages because the winds are not yet at their strongest over counties over the northern half of the country [and] as you go through the midlands in particular and especially the north midlands through the morning those winds are going to increase. In fact they’re going to increase over much of the northern half of the country.”
He said “structural damage is almost inevitable really [and] the messaging of the red warnings is to adhere to those diligently and to stay at home this morning because it is a very, very stormy morning ... people need to take the utmost care. It will all be over by mid afternoon so it’s not much to give up on a morning in order to stay safe.”
A status red wind warning is now in effect for 25 counties, with Donegal and Northern Ireland to fall into the same category at 7am.
Flights to and from Shannon Airport have been cancelled with gusts of almost 140km/h recorded there this morning. In a statement, the airport has said it “remains open and our staff continue to monitor this extreme weather event. Our full schedule will resume once weather conditions permit”.
It is worth noting that hurricane-force winds will sweep over parts of the west, northwest and north this morning.
More than half a million homes and businesses are currently without power across the country. According to the most recent data, 560,000 properties have no electricity right now with few – if any – counties escaping outages.
In a statement, ESB Networks said its teams will commence restoring power where safe to do so
“There has been unprecedented, widespread and extensive damage to electricity infrastructure so far with power outages nationwide affecting 560,000 customers as of 6am; we anticipate significant further outages as Storm Éowyn moves across the country
“An Important Public Safety Message: If you come across fallen wires or damaged electricity network, never, ever touch or approach these as they are live and extremely dangerous. Please report any damage to electricity infrastructure by calling 1800 372 999
“ESB Networks crews and partner contractors will be deployed when safe to do so, to assess the network and work to safely restore power as quickly as possible in challenging conditions.”
Red wind warnings have just come into force for Cavan, Monaghan, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow, Roscommon and Tipperary.
This is only the third time Met Éireann has issued the highest-level alert for the entire country.
The first was during Storm Ophelia in 2017 and then again for Storm Emma in 2018. Donegal will be the last county where the weather warnings are lifted with the red alert valid there until 3pm on Friday.
“This is a storm like no storm you have ever experienced in Ireland,” Alan O’Reilly from Carlow Weather says.
The most recent update from Dublin Airport will not make for happy reading for anyone coming or going this morning.
And another wind record has just been broken, this time in Foynes, Co Limerick, where a gust of 183km/h has just been recorded.
Carlow Weather is reporting that Storm Éowyn has just broken the record gust for Ireland, one that has stood for almost a century. According to data just published from Met Éireann a gust of 183km/h was recorded at Mace Head in Galway at 5am. The old record stood since 1945 was 182km/h. At the risk of stating the very obvious, this is going to be a big, big storm.
At least 200 flights to and from Dublin Airport have already been cancelled this morning. Every flight due to depart up until 8.45am has been cancelled with the exception of one flight to Abu Dhabi at 8.25am which currently has a delayed status and a Tenerife-bound flight due to leave at 8.45 also “delayed”.
It is interesting, perhaps, that the only airline that is currently listing most of its flights in the hours after 9am as being on schedule is Ryanair.
It is even worse when it comes to arrivals with nothing coming in until after 9am, according to the Live Arrivals board on the Dublin Airport website right now. People hoping to travel are being advised to keep in close contact with their airlines before heading to that airport – or any airport in the country.
Red weather alerts are now in place across much of Ireland with Storm Éowyn battering the country in a big way right now and gusts of over 170km/h reported in the west overnight. While the entire island will come under the highest level of wind warnings in the next couple of hours, as it stands, the red alerts are in place for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Clare, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo.
The highest winds recorded so far were in Ceann Mhása in Connemara, Co Galway, where gusts as high as 174km/h have been recorded.
The ESB’s PowerCheck website is currently showing outages all over the country with at least 150,000 homes and businesses without power as of now.
