Young West Cork residents see the bright side as power cut persists

Water, water everywhere, not any drop to drink.

Parts of West Cork were getting used to not being able to drink water from the tap yesterday, and in some cases, the same households were also without power as a result of Wednesday’s storm.

But then, who needs water and electricity when you have Duplo bricks?

That was the view of Emily Dullea, a six-year-old from the townland of Deelish near Drimoleague.

“We had no school because of a power cut,” she said cheerfully, adding that while there was no hot water for hot water bottles, “we have Duplo” and other toys to keep her and her little brother, three-year-old Jamie, amused.

Their mother, Sinead Dullea, said the electricity had been cut off by the storm on Wednesday and had yet to return, while the house was also without water. “We are getting water from our friends, about 15 minute’s away, and my in-laws have water,” she said.

Her husband, Michael, has also been calling over to his parents to use their gas to boil water for essential use back in their own home, while water is also being brought back to fill the toilet cisterns so they can be flushed.

The children, however, are setting a fine example, looking at the positives and rediscovering their toys. As Sinead said: “We’ve never been so grateful for all those Christmas presents.”

Good news could be on the way, however. Not far from the Dullea house, an ESB networks crew were taking a well-earned break from trying to get the power supply flowing again.

The two lads, Michael and Noel, aren’t from around here. They’ve come all the way from their usual base in Carrick-On-Shannon to reinforce local teams battling to get power into homes that have been without for three days and nights.

Noel explained they had arrived on Wednesday and that “we’ll be here until Sunday at least”, although power was being restored to many local houses.

Falling trees did most of the damage, pulling down power lines, he said.

The nearby Castledonovan National School is closed due to the power outage, and others in the locality are doing the best they can until all systems are back up and running.

Local authority water services vehicles and Eircom vans were also in evidence, while down in Drimoleague locals in the post office were still talking about the trees that were felled by the huge winds on Wednesday.

In the Curiosity Shop charity store on the main street, Kathleen Payne and Jen Knight said they were still without water and had been instructed not to use the water they can access — “we can’t even clean our teeth,” Kathleen said. “We have to boil the water.”

She said they had not received notification as to when the water situation would change, but Cork County Council officials were positive yesterday that many areas would have their water supply back by last night.

The electricity had also returned to the shop and to the ladies’ homes, although the days without heat and light had been trying.

“We had no heat,” said Kathleen. “We don’t have a fire.”

Jen said that at one point she was going to venture into town for supplies but a tree was blocking her path.

Boil water notices were still in operation across much of the county yesterday, but the local authority said it expected normal service to resume shortly, in addition to power and communications come fully back on line.

In the meantime, there’s always Duplo.