Operation lockdown
»» Taoiseach warns danger still remains after a day of chaos »» Teams in push to get rough sleepers into emergency shelter
THE country went into lockdown yesterday as authorities pleaded with people: “Stay at home.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar arrived at the National Emergency Coordination Group HQ with a public warning: “Even when the storm has passed there will still be dangers.” As the death toll rose to three, Government buildings were bolted but behind the scenes essential staff rolled out a crisis emergency plan. Rescuing rough sleepers from Dublin’s ghost streets was the most urgent goal. Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said: “We will get to them into safe secure accommodation. We have teams who are doing that, working with the Dublin Homeless Executive and the voluntary sector NGOS and other local authorities. “As part of the national response we will look after our citizens that are most vulnerable – that is the homeless – the people who are living on the streets.” Nationwide, health services ground to a halt. Hospitals axed all appointments and casualty services were stripped back to a minimum. Brendan Lawlor from the HSE Crisis Management Team said: “Our acute emergency depart- men ts er vice sand ambulance services are operating but it’s on an urgent case basis only that we are operating these services. “We have to look at the outcome of this storm and how it will affect our services in the next few days. Services may be curtailed.” As the storm intensified power lines were taken down by fallen trees. ESB operations manager Derek Hynes added: “Our main focus at the minute is managing the emerging public safety risk we will have and we have had trees falling on our network. We do have and we will have more live wires on the grounds.” Homes and businesses that have been cut off could be left in the dark for days – by yesterday afternoon 360,000 customers had been hit. Mr Hynes said: “We are ful ly resourced to respond across our network at the minute and we are engaged with local authorities across the country. “We have also reached out to partner utilities in Northern Ireland and in the UK to provide welcome mutual assistance over the course of Tuesday, Wednesday, and the rest of the week if required.” The Army is on standby at bases