ESB NETWORKS CREWS have restored power to over 160,000 customers following Storm Ali yesterday, but a number of outages remain across the country. The outages have affected homes, farms and businesses across Ireland. ESB Networks crews this morning restored power to 14,000 further customers that lost supply due to the impact of Storm Ali. At the height of the storm yesterday afternoon, 186,000 customers were impacted. Efforts have been continuing throughout today to restore power to as many of the remaining 25,000 customers as possible. However, weather conditions have not improved today as Storm Bronagh has arrived from the south, bringing with it heavy rainfall. Met Éireann has issued a Status Yellow rainfall warning for seven counties in the southeast of the country: Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford.ESB Networks has said that all available resources are being deployed to carry out repairs to the network and restore power today. Additional crews from less impacted areas of the country are being deployed in the worst impacted counties, which include Sligo, Galway, Longford, Westmeath, Cavan and Louth. The network expects that most of the 25,000 customers who were without power this morning will have their supply restored by tonight.
ESB networks have warned that there are over 1,000 locations where Storm Ali has damaged its networks, resulting in extensive damage with low hanging and fallen lines nationwide. “We are particularly appealing to farmers and landowners to be vigilant as fallen trees or branches may have fallen on or been leaning against electricity wires,” the network said in a statement. Never approach broken lines or damaged poles, and keep children and animals away report the damage to ESB Networks at 1850 372 999 and listen to recorded messages carefully turn off electric cookers, ovens, irons, etc if electricity supply is lostLeave a light switched on so you know when power has been restored take extra care if using candles, oil lamps or other naked flames test smoke alarms with fresh batteries ensure adequate ventilation if using gas heatersReal-time information about power outages and restoration times across the country can be.