Thousands without power in wake of Storm Éowyn
Cork may have escaped the worst of things as Storm Éowyn passed over the country last night, though thousands on Leeside remain without power this morning.
Speaking on RTÉ's ‘Morning Ireland’, Cork County Council’s Director of Services Padraig Barrett said it appeared the Cork had “escaped the worst” of the storm and that many other counties had been “far more impacted”.
“That's not to say that we haven't been impacted. We have over 25,000 customers, ESB customers, without power this morning around the county, which is quite significant,” said Mr Barrett.
According to ESB’s PowerCheck, some of the areas most affected by outages include Ballydehob (1,781), Bandon (538), Dunmanway (145), and Macroom (739).
Maximum gusts of 130km/h were recorded across the county overnight with up to 40mm of rainfall recorded which created multiple hazards. There have also been reports of multiple wall collapses in the city and county.
Flooding in coastal areas was a major concern in Cork, however Mr Barrett confirmed that high tide had peaked in Bantry at 11.45pm last night “without incident”.
“High tide will be at twelve again this morning or later today, and we are not worried at this point in time, thankfully,” added Mr Barrett.
Trees down
Cork County Council confirmed that there are currently multiple trees down across the county resulting in widespread road closures.
Priority areas for council crews include reopening the R586 Ballineen to Bandon road, the R600 Kinsale to Ballinspittle road and the R612 Carrigaline to Crosshaven road. These routes are currently impassable due to fallen trees.
The M8 Blackwater Viaduct, Fermoy has now reopened to traffic. The N71 near Glengarriff Golf Club has also reopened.
A status red wind warning remained in place in Cork until 10am this morning with a status orange wind warning now in effect until 4pm today. Strong and potentially damaging winds are expected.
Cork County Council has asked the public not to travel today unless absolutely necessary even after the red warning expires. Aside from the dangers of fallen trees, power cables and telecoms infrastructure, there will be a lot of debris on roads and footpaths, the council advised.
Power cuts
Meanwhile, ESB has described Storm Éowyn as a “record breaking storm” with the company saying it had never experienced so many power cuts in the country. Currently, approximately 700,000 ESB customers are without power nationwide.
There have also been widespread disruptions to Eir telecommunications services across the country with 11,000 broadband faults, 10,000 fixed voice faults, and around 500 mobile network site outages having been reported.
The provider said the most significant disruptions are in Cork, Mayo, Meath, Clare, and Kildare.
Uisce Éireann has said that significant disruption to water supplies is expected due widespread power outages.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin took to X this morning, describing Storm Éowyn as a “historic storm” and urging the people of Ireland to “please take care”.
He wrote: "The National Emergency Coordination Group is meeting shortly with a national effort involving ESB, Defence Forces, Civil Defence and Irish Water to restore power, water and get help to those who need it, once safe.”