During the night and this morning, Storm Emma has caused damage to the electricity network across Ireland, with a peak of 101,000 homes, farms and businesses without power at 1:30 am last night.
As of 12:20 pm, there are 350 faults affecting 26,000 homes and business who are without electricity, predominantly in the east of the country and Co Cork.
“In the normal course of events, this would be a very manageable number of faults for ESB Networks to deal with, but access issues due to snow and ice are hugely hampering our efforts to restore electricity supplies,” a spokesperson explains.
This morning, 1,200 homes and businesses in Buncrana were left without electricity. ESB Networks have been working to repair the fault, with just 119 customers affected in the area this afternoon. ESB Networks hope to restore power to all homes and businesses in Buncrana by 7pm.
155 customers remain without power in Gweedore today, when a fault occurred at 5:55am. The estimated restore time is 2:35pm.
The spokesperson continues: “We understand how difficult it is to not have electricity in these conditions and so our staff are focussed on trying to restore supply to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
“There are deep snow drifts in various parts of the country and so it is taking our crews a very long time to travel to each fault. It is also more difficult than normal to then carry out a repair.
“We will continue to work with the emergency services and Local Authorities to ensure the safety of the pubic and to minimise disruption and are seeking assistance from other state agencies to help us with access. However, it is unlikely that we will be able to restore supply to all customers today as a result of the conditions. Updates and more specific restoration times will issue later today.
“At the peak of the storm last night, there were 117,000 premises without electricity. ESB Networks operations staff and our Control Centre restored supply to 90,000 of those customers in Dublin by working through the night.
“Since this morning, as we restored some supplies, an additional 10,000 homes, farms and businesses unfortunately lost electricity supply as new faults developed as a result of the continuing wind and falling snow.”
The main areas affected, at the moment, are parts of Carrigaline, Kilmoney, Trabolgan, Aghada and Kinsale in the south of the country and Swords, Lusk, Skerries, Navan, Julianstown, Rathcoole, Duleek, Drybridge, Dunsandle, Allenwood, Prosperous and Saggart in the east.
“Please be assured that we will work continuously to restore supply to our customers,” they concluded.
If you lose power:
- Never approach broken lines or damaged poles, and keep children and animals away – report damage to ESB Networks at 1850 372 999 and listen to recorded messages carefully
- Turn off electric cookers, ovens, irons, etc. if electricity supply is lost
- Leave a light switched on so you know when power has been restored
- Take extra care if using candles, oil lamps or other naked flames
- Test smoke alarms with fresh batteries
- Ensure adequate ventilation if using gas heaters.
Please report emergencies such as fallen wires to 1850 372 999.
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