Storm Doris: Work continues to restore power to 1,500 homes

ESB confirms some homes will remain without power for a second night following storm

ESB repair crews are working since early Friday morning to restore power to an about 1,500 customers who were without power overnight after Storm Doris swept across the country.

However, an ESB spokesman has confirmed “small pockets” of customers will remain without power for a second

At one stage on Thursday up to 56,000 homes were without power as powerful winds resulted in more than 900 individual faults across the network.

An ESB spokesman said on Friday crews had been out trying to fix the 600 faults remaining.

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“The vast majority will be restored by tonight but there will be small pockets without power for a second night,” he said.

He said the areas still without power stretched from counties Mayo, Sligo, Louth, Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford and Cavan.

ESB's head of corporate communications Bernadine Maloney said the volume of faults and the nature of the terrain meant the process of restoring power was a "hard slog" for the estimated 2,000 technicians working on repairing the faults.

Householders experiencing a power cut were told to see if their fault was already logged on the powercheck.ie website, and if not, to telephone 1850 372 999.

During the orange level weather alert, the gusts reached hurricane force 12 in some areas, with the highest wind of 133km/h recorded at Mace Head in Co Galway, according to Met Éireann.

Commuters faced major disruption on Thursday, with roads and railway lines blocked by trees that had fallen over in Wednesday night’s storm.

At least a dozen flights between Ireland and the UK were cancelled on Thursday due to the storm, while many early morning departures were delayed due to wind conditions.

Irish Ferry sailings between Dublin and Holyhead were also cancelled.

On Friday, some sailings were delayed due to the weather conditions but running.

Met Éireann said Friday night would be windy and cloudy with temperatures dropping to 5 degrees.

The national forecaster predicts a wet and windy Saturday morning with strong and gusty winds through the day.

There is a status yellow gale warning in place for Irish coastal waters.

Dan Griffin

Dan Griffin

Dan Griffin is an Irish Times journalist

Rachel Flaherty

Rachel Flaherty

Rachel Flaherty is an Irish Times journalist