Storm Éowyn: Almost two weeks later, 25,000 are still without power

Tue, 04 Feb, 2025 - 10:13

Vivienne Clarke

Some 25,000 homes and businesses are still without power as a result of Storm Éowyn.

The status red level storm, which hit the country on January 24, left more than 760,000 powerless.

In an update on Tuesday, the ESB said approximately 25,000 homes, farms, and businesses remain without power and it could be the weekend before it is restored.

ESB regional manager Siobhan Wynne said the worst affected areas are Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim with Cavan, Longford, Sligo, Monaghan and Donegal also impacted.

“All of our resources continue to work over the weekend and again early this morning with almost 3,000 people working on the ground, including our own crews and crews from different international utilities. And we have additional crews now arriving in the morning from Northern Ireland," she said, speaking on RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland.

“We expect to get the majority of these 25,000 customers back over the next couple of days and restoring power then to remaining customers over the course of the remainder of this week.”

Ms Wynne acknowledged that it could be the end of the week and into the weekend before power is returned to all.

“We are looking to try and get as accurate forecast restoration dates as possible. We will be working on that again today. And we will update Power Check then with the most up-to-date information later today.”

The utility said it is mobilising all available resources to restore power to homes, farms and businesses as soon as possible.

'Haemorrhaging money'

One family without power for 11 days is Lynn and David Braniff from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. They have been told it will be Thursday of this week at the very earliest when their power will return.

Ms Braniff told the same radio programme of how they light the fire to heat water and if they want to bathe they “throw basins of water at each other.” Her husband added that their generator uses five litres every three hours, so they use it only when needed.

Ms Braniff said they are "haemorrhaging money at the minute".

"We don't have the facilities here to always cook. So you go to a deli. It's what, €15, €20? You know, you can't sustain that every day. We've already lost a chest freezer full of food out in the shed. We've lost the contents of our fridge just at this point.

"You know, the credit cards just go up and up and up and you're just thinking, this is what we're having to do just to try and get through day to day."

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