Vivenne Clarke
The managing director of ESB Networks has said that a review will be undertaken, in conjunction with other agencies, about the impact of Storm Éowyn.
The results of the review will be published as it will have an impact on the future of the energy provider.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Nicholas Tarrant acknowledged that some customers would not have power until next week. It was difficult to predict when power would come back as the scale of the damage from the storm was significant.
Mr Tarrant said that 768,000 customers were initially without electricity, which was nearly one-third of all connected customers and double the number previously impacted by a storm.
Éowyn was the worst storm the country had ever faced, surpassing previous major storms like Storm Darragh and Storm Ophelia (in 2017), he said.
When asked about the lessons learned from this experience, Mr Tarrant highlighted the challenges of restoring power, the resilience of the electricity network, and the need for continued investment to improve the network's ability to withstand such extreme weather events in the future.
It had been a very challenging week for ESB crews and for customers. This had been an extreme weather event with winds that surpassed anything recorded since the electrification of the country.
The scale of the damage and the scale of the challenge to restore power was “huge”, he said. Even though some people were still without power, incredible progress had been made.
“What was unique about the storm was it impacted from our high voltage network right down to medium voltage and low voltage.
“We have an electricity network in this country that's dominated by overhead lines.
Critical national infrastructure
"We have about 160,000km of overhead lines in this country. And for us now, as we're facing into the future around investment, if you think about the electricity network, as critical national infrastructure is required for housing, for the economy and of course, for climate action. And so continued and expanded investment is going to be crucial.”
Mr Tarrant said the issue of trees was going to have to be examined by ESB Networks in view of the damage caused to power supplies by the many fallen trees across the country.
“We still have over 100,000 people who don't have electricity this morning. We are working with huge resources.
"We have approximately 2800 people working on the storm restoration directly. But we are going to keep customers informed over the coming days as to how that restoration effort is going and as the numbers are coming down.
"But the scale of the damage out there is still very, very significant in this really unique storm.”
Meanwhile the chief executive of Alone, the support organisation for the elderly, has called for members of the community to check in on older neighbours to offer assistance even if they are normally self reliant.
Sean Moynihan told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that with many older people there was a delicate balance between “home care, health care, housing and staying well” and that delicate balance had been tipped following Storm Éowyn.
Alone assisted 42,000 people last year and since the storm they have been contacting these people to check in on them, however, with the lack of communication services in some areas meant it had not been possible to connect with people by phone so their volunteers have been visiting in person.
The challenge was identifying the gap where people who traditionally were not vulnerable or normally were coping well, who might be missed because they were not known to services, he said.
“Ultimately we need to have every older person who has the ability to reach out, to stay in contact. And if they do need support, even no matter how proud or how resilient or how stoic they normally are, please reach out for support to an agency like ourselves. If we can't support you, we will find somebody else who will solve the problem you have.
“Obviously we need everybody to be reaching out, checking in with neighbours. Home carers and the councils are doing their best, but ultimately the concern we all have like we had having Covid and other times is that somebody will be missed.”
