By Rebecca Black, PA
ESB crews resumed work on Sunday morning to restore power to thousands of homes left without electricity following Storm Darragh.
Gusts of up to 140km/h on Friday night caused extensive damage to the electricity network, with almost 450,000 customers across the island losing power at the peak of the storm.
An ESB Networks spokesperson said Storm Darragh was similar in impact to ex-hurricane Ophelia in 2017.
The network said significant numbers of customers may be without supply for a number of days and some outages could last for up to a week “due to the severity and significant scale of the damage” caused.
Keith Leonard of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management urged the public “to continue to take care in the aftermath” of the storm.
Uisce Éireann said there had been disruption to water treatment plants in Kerry, east Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, Waterford, Donegal, Leitrim and Galway.
Telecommunications firm Eir said Storm Darragh caused widespread service disruptions across Ireland, with Mayo and Donegal “among the hardest-hit counties but impacts felt nationwide”. It said more than 35,000 broadband faults, 20,000 fixed voice and about 500 mobile network site outages had been registered.
The worst hit area in the North was Co Antrim, with power station EP Ballylumford temporarily halting electricity generation on Saturday following damage to a chimney and scores of roads blocked by fallen trees.
A bus also crashed close to Belfast International Airport and a loyalist mural in north Belfast was damaged.
On Sunday morning, public transport provider Translink said all rail lines were open, although some speed restrictions are in place.
NIE Networks said 15,000 remained without power in the North at 9am on Sunday. They have indicated it may take a number of days to reconnect those customers.
Network operations manager Alex Houston said engineers are working to restore customers as quickly as possible.
“Most of the faults affecting high numbers of customers have been repaired which has allowed us to restore significant numbers of customers,” he said.
“However, there are still around 1,200 faults across the network, some of which are affecting very small numbers of customers, so we do anticipate that it will take some time before we can get all of these cleared.
“Engineers will be working to restore customers as quickly as they can and we will provide further updates as soon as we are able to.”
Community assistance centres are set to open later for those still without power.
South Lake leisure centre in Craigavon, Lagan Valley Leisureplex in Lisburn, Blair Mayne in Newtownards, Seven Towers in Ballymena, Cookstown leisure centre, Kilkeel leisure centre and Fermanagh Lakeland Forum will open from 2pm to 4pm offering warm drinks as well as charging and changing facilities.
Additionally, Coleraine leisure centre will open from noon until 3pm and the Red Cross will be working with NIE Networks to provide support at Draperstown Centra, Islandmagee Spar and Newtownstewart Spar from 2pm-4pm.
NIE Networks is also reminding the public to stay clear of any damaged electricity equipment, keep children and animals away and to report any incidents of damage immediately to the NIE Networks customer helpline on 03457 643 643.
