170km/h gales leave thousands without power

THOUSANDS of homes were left without electricity or telephones yesterday after 170km/h gales battered Ireland — the third strongest since records began in 1888.

Gales left 10,000 homes in Co Donegal without power and cut off telephones to 8,500 homes nationwide, with engineers having to work around the clock to restore services.

Met Éireann said the wind on Tuesday night and yesterday morning reached 170km/h at Malinhead, Co Donegal, the third highest since records started 120 years ago.

The wind speed was the highest since the storms of Christmas 1998, when 186km/h gales battered Ireland — the current national record and worse than Hurricane Debbie in 1961.

Yesterday, forecaster Vincent O’Shea predicted a combination of high winds and heavy rain would return at the weekend, bringing floods and more misery.

“More rain and strong winds will spread countrywide during Saturday and all the signs are that it will be heavy rain as well,” he said.

“On Saturday evening and Saturday night, rain could be 25mm in parts, with a risk of localised flooding.

“But hopefully there will be no repeat of Tuesday night’s gusts though it will be fairly windy.”

He said Ireland would see more rain today before a severe frost grips the country tonight.

Tomorrow is to remain dry with light winds.

The ESB reported the storms also caused power cuts in Cork and Kerry but engineers were working to get supplies restored by today.

Eircom engineers were drafted in to the north-west to restore phone lines but warned customers they could have to wait until as late as the end of next week.

Engineers were also called to rectify faults across Connacht, as well as Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary,west Cork and Tralee inCo Kerry.

Eircom spokeswoman Dearhaill Rossiter said yesterday: “We’ve had over 6,000 faults reported in the last two days and our storm recovery plan will remain in place into next week.

“In the worst affected areas it could be the middle of next week or late next week before services are restored to some customers.”

Eircom has also drafted in extra staff to handle the rise in the numbers of subscribers calling to report faults on their phone line.

ESB spokesman Kevin McDermott said engineers were working to get power back to Donegal customers by late yesterday with all other supplies restored today.

AA Roadwatch yesterday reported problems caused by icy conditions, which are set to return later in the week.