‘PUT SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL’ - CREWS

IT WAS LIKE A JET ENGINE ROARING ABOVE THE SOUND OF THE MILKING MACHINE

SLIGO County Council and the ESB swung into action with great efficiency before Storm Eleanor had even left us last Tuesday night.

According to the ESB, more than 2,000 households in County Sligo lost power as a result of the short but unexpectedly vicious storm.

The areas which had power cuts included Enniscrone (1,500 customers), Tubbercurry (900), Calry (136), Rosses Point (80), North Sligo (52) and pockets in rural areas (100).

Tubbercurry town was entirely without power from approximately 6.15pm Tuesday evening.

Gearoid Surlis’ Supervalu and the Daybreak service station were one of the few businesses able to remain open with back-up from generators.

“We were very fortunate. We have two generators for the past 16 years. You could lose a lot of stock if you didn’t have it,” said Supervalu owner Gearóid Surlis.

“We closed early because of it but power came back around 11.30pm. A lot of people were wary of coming into town with the wind. We were not expecting it to be as bad,” he told this newspaper.

Emergency crews from both agencies worked through the night in high winds and extremely dangerous conditions to clear trees from minor roads and repair fallen power lines.

Further south in Gurteen, there weren’t as many power cuts but many trees came down, according to County Councillor Paul Taylor.

“Nearly every road was blocked. It just blew very hard for 20-25 minutes,” he told The Sligo Champion.

“We were very lucky that it didn’t rage for any longer. It was worse than we were warned about but no power outages here,” he added.

An ESB spokesperson confirmed to The Sligo Champion that power was restored to most Sligo customers by Wednesday night.

They brought down extra crews from Donegal which wasn’t hit as hard as Sligo or Mayo.

“They put their shoulders to the wheel. We put a huge amount of resources into the operation and we apologise once again to our Sligo customers for their loss of power,” he added.

Sligo County Council crews cleared dozens of trees, telegraph poles and debris off roads. In Sligo town Gibraltar Road and the Mardyke road in Cartron was closed for a time due to flooding, as was the Easkey to Castle Road along the west coast.