The west coast is forecast to be hardest hit by Storm Éowyn, with counties Kerry and Limerick among the first due to come under Met Éireann’s status red warning.
The forecaster says there will be gale to storm force southerly winds with extreme, damaging and destructive gusts in excess of 130km/h between 2am and 10am on Friday. A similar warning will apply to counties Clare and Galway from 3am to 11am.
These winds could result in a danger to life, extremely dangerous travelling conditions, unsafe working conditions, coastal flooding in low lying areas, fallen trees, widespread power outages and impacts to communications networks, Met Éireann said.
Ahead of the storm, Limerick City and County Council is advising people to prepare for “potentially very serious impacts” on Friday.
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Households are advised to secure anything that could blow away such as garden furniture and trampolines as “these could be turned into missiles in the wind”; and to prepare for services outages by charging mobile phones and having torches on standby with spare batteries.
The local authority also cautions against unnecessary journeys and advises that people check on older or vulnerable neighbours and bring pets inside.
Galway City Council said a number of car parks in areas such as Salthill would closed due to potential coastal overtopping, the following car parks will be closed from Thursday. It said sandbags are available from Spanish Arch, the fire station on Fr Griffin Road and at Seapoint next to the aquarium in Salthill.
Clare County Council is warning of coastal flooding in low-lying and exposed areas and advising residents to stay indoors and not travel during the period of the red warning.
Kerry County Council is advising people living its area to plan for the loss of utilities and to have basic provisions so they can stay indoors on Friday. It recommended that people planning to socialise on Thursday night have plans in place to get home two hours before the warning comes into effect.
Transport for Ireland said public transport would be likely be severely disrupted by the storm, with bus and train services not operating while the red warning is in place.
“Services in the hours before and after the Red Warning takes effect are also likely to be severely impacted,” it said.
“We are urging customers not to undertake any travel without checking that services are operational. Check your operator’s website and social media for updates.”
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