Thousands still without power while high water levels in rivers still pose risk

Normal winter weather has been forecast by Met Éireann for the coming days, but there are still thousands without power after recent storms, and the threat of additional rainfall still poses a risk to rivers with high water levels.

The National Coordination Group, set up to deal with emergency situations, met again yesterday to review the weather situation. It last night said power had been restored to “most water treatment plants” but boil water notices are in place as a precaution.

Despite the absence of any weather warnings from Met Éireann, the group said “the threat of additional rainfall may top up the already near capacity of our rivers and still poses a risk”.

Local authorities are continuing to monitor the position in relation to river levels generally, while the ESB are monitoring levels on the rivers Liffey, Lee and Shannon. Discharges are being managed in conjunction with local authorities.

The National Coordination Group also expressed its condolences to the family and colleagues of Michael O’Riordan who died over the weekend while restoring communications.

A spokesman for ESB Networks last night appealed to the public not to approach fallen lines after technicians observed members of the public engaging in “a number of extremely dangerous and worrying incidents”.

“While the effort to clear all the safety hazards, primarily caused by trees falling on the network, continues to be our highest priority, we ask the public not to go near fallen lines and in particular to warn children of this danger as they may be outside playing during midterm break.

“Our technicians have observed a number of extremely dangerous and worrying incidents where members of the public have put themselves in danger by rolling up broken conductor and either placing it at the bottom of a pole or putting it in a nearby ditch.

“Some of our lines are coated in PVC but are not insulated. We also remind customers who are using generators that they should observe the safety precautions and ensure they do not connect a generator to a socket or distribution board. Doing so will create a feed onto the electricity network and will pose a danger to others including repair crews.”

The spokesman said he expected between 12,000 and 13,000 customers to remain without power overnight, while some people will still be without power over the next couple of days.

Additional personnel and resources have been drafted in from Northern Ireland Electricity and the United Kingdom in order to assist with repairs.

In total, electricity supply has been restored supply to over 260,000 homes and businesses. From Thursday to Sunday, approximately 1,700 poles, 400km of conductor and 400 transformers have been replaced.

The restoration will continue “well into the week”. There are still more than 5000 faults to address – but over 95 per cent of these are isolated faults impacting on less than 3 customers per fault.

The regions with the most customers still without power are the surrounding areas of Tralee, Dunmanway, Killarney, Fermoy, Newcastlewest, Tipperary and Enniscorthy.