There are still 140,000 properties without power in Northern Ireland following Storm Eowyn
The number of homes and businesses without power in Northern Ireland due to Storm Eowyn has edged down to 140,000.
Strong winds battered the region from the early hours of Friday while the public were urged to stay at home amid a top-level red weather warning.
Homes and buildings were damaged and scores of roads were blocked by fallen trees during the strong winds, while a yellow warning for wind has been issued for Sunday.
On Saturday morning, NIE Networks said that as of 4.30pm approximately 140,000 properties remained without power, down from 189,000 early this morning.
NIE Networks have urged the public to stay well clear of any damaged electricity equipment as the storm has had a devastating impact on the electricity network.
Derek Hynes, Managing Director for NIE Networks, advised: “We are getting reports of members of the public coming into contact with electricity equipment in their bid to help restoration efforts. This includes cutting trees without realising that there are live power lines in contact with the trees and reports of people rolling up lines.
“There is a serious risk of harm to the public so we would again appeal for the public to stay well clear of any power lines or other equipment you may come across. Be mindful that trees and other infrastructure could be in contact with live power lines even if not immediately obvious.”
Public urged to stay clear of electrical equipment and power lines
NIE Networks have urged the public to stay well clear of any damaged electricity equipment as Storm Eowyn has had a devastating impact on the electricity network.
As of 4.30pm approximately 140,000 homes remain without power and NIE Networks teams are working to make the network safe and restore power to as many customers as possible. At its peak Storm Eowyn caused around 30% of all premises in Northern Ireland to lose power due to the high gusts.
NIE Networks said they hope to restore power to the vast majority of homes and businesses over the coming days. But they warned the scale of the damage means it could take up to 10 days before all customers have power restored, and both weather conditions, and the ability to access locations, will continue to be challenging this weekend.
Earlier on Saturday, Mr Hynes said they believe there are more than 4,000 locations where the network has been damaged by the wind or fallen trees. “At this early stage, we believe that there are well over 4,000 locations in Northern Ireland where our network has been damaged by the wind or falling trees. Each of these locations will need to be visited.
“Right now, we are prioritising faults which affect the largest numbers of homes and businesses. It is likely that it will take us up to 10 days to get to the final locations and restore power to those residents.
“We continue to work with government and other agencies to try to provide information to the most vulnerable in our society as we work through a long restoration effort.”
On Friday, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck said it will take days to assess the full impact of the “severe” storm.
“We’re only now starting to see the number of calls start to rise in respect of impacts, concerns for safety, and indeed, more and more reports in respect of roads blocked and issues as a consequence of that,” he said.
“So, I think it’s going to be a number of days before we can fully understand the full impacts of this storm but certainly this was a severe storm.”