POWER CUTS, WATER WOES OF DESTRUCTION
WEXFORD WAS ONE OF THE WORST-HIT COUNTIES RAVAGED BY EX HURRICANE OPHELIA. DAVID TUCKER REPORTS
IN A few short hours ex-Hurricane Ophelia scoured a destructive path through the county and left a trail of unparalleled devastation in its wake, the after-effects of which are still being felt. More than 600 trees were uprooted, and businesses, homes and entire villages were left without power.
The ESB said that with with the assistance of crews from the UK and France, it would restore supplies despite the difficult conditions, field by field, tree by tree and pole by pole.
As Storm Brian threatened the relief effort over the weekend, the ESB said the worst impacted areas in the country included the environs of Wexford town, Enniscorthy and New Ross.
ESB Networks said that assisted by contractors, crews from Northern Ireland and overseas utilities, as well as the army and air corps, it would continue restorations to every last family, farm and business until their lives are back to normal.
While the county escaped any tragedies during the storm, the rescue of a 10-metre yacht in hurricane force winds could easily have become one.
Rosslare lifeboat carried out a very brave rescue of the yacht off the Wexford coast at the height of the storm on Monday and towed the stricken vessel and its three-strong crew to Rosslare Europort.
At around the same time, the biggest individual wave ever recorded off Ireland, an 18-metre (60-feet) monster, was detected by the M5 weather buoy off the Wexford coast.
A second wave in the same area reached 12.97 metres, both waves ripping the buoy from its mooring and the Marine Institute had to coordinate an operation to retrieve it.
The following day - Tuesday, and in much calmer conditions - the yacht ‘Second Love’ put to sea again on its journey to Malahide only to send out another Mayday after getting into difficulties.
This time it was towed to safety by the Aklow RNLI crew.
On Wednesday, water supplies to Wexford town were cut following a power supply interruption at the Edenvale plant on the Newtown Road.
Water supplies to much of the town and district were affected, including Murrintown, Mulgannon, Clonard, Whitemill, Meadowlands, Coolcotts, Ard Carmen, Whiterock Hill and Summerhill. As a result of the outage, supplies at the reservoir were depleted.
Many local schools were closed, some for several days, because of power cuts and water shortages.
Council crews did Trojan work on Monday night, clearing branches and fallen trees from national roads, all of which were clear by midnight, and from first light turning their attention on primary roads, many of which had been blocked by falling trees, although it was some time before more remote rural roads were cleared.
Minister Paul Kehoe commended the work of Wexford County Council, all their staff and crew, the ESB and Irish Water staff and all voluntary organisations who have worked extremely hard in both preparing for Ophelia and in all that they are currently doing to resolve the many issues caused by this event.
Wexford town largely escaped the wrath of the storm, although the roof at Scoil Mhuire was damaged and trees fell, blocking several suburban roads.
The districts fared worse with a tree falling on a house in Barntown, a five-span hayshed being lifted into the air and flung 100 feet in Taghmon and part of the roof at the Sofrimar plant at Kilmore Quay suffering damage. At Davidstown, the roof of the GAA clubhouse was badly damaged.
Farmer Paul Kehoe from Taghmon said that at the height of the storm his five-span, hayshed flew 100 feet through the air before landing in his front garden.
‘I heard creaking and when I was walking out in the yard to get sticks when it happened. I saw it go up into the air. I was lucky it didn’t hit the dwelling house.’
For several days last week, they turned back the clock in Wellingtonbridge, where there was a roaring trade in ‘old-fashioned’ arts and crafts, and games like Sudoku and packs of playing cards, as children and teenagers found their ubuiqitous electronic devices powerless. ‘We’ve been very busy selling traditional toys,’ said Chrissie Harpur at Wallace’s as she totted up a hand-written invoice, after a generator powering the store’s computers finally gave up the ghost.
‘You could say we’ve turned back the clock to the way things used to be, but people have been coping very well,’ she said.
Local fast food outlets were doing a roaring trade in pizzas and burgers as well as many people were unable to cook because of the power cuts.
Water too was a problem - some had it and some didn’t.
Lorraine Finn said she had left six women neighbours, who had no water, taking showers at her home, which did, while she was at work last Thursday.
‘Sure, we have to help each other out.’
Fortunately fears of flooding in low lying areas - including Wellingtonbridge - quickly receded, but with winds of more than 140 km/h, no area was safe and people largely followed advice to stay away from exposed areas,
Wexford Festival Opera did not escape unscathed from Ophelia either.
At the outset of the pre-festival performance of Margherita on Tuesday night, David Agler, the artistic director, told the audience that because of Ophelia, the stage would have ‘working light’ only.
There were two or three ‘blackouts’ which lasted for less than one second, but the audience enjoyed it nonetheless and the performance closed to thunderous applause.
Irish Water said it is continuing to work with the ESB and Wexford County Council to restore water supplies to all customers in the wake of the storm, although precise numbers of how many people were still without water or power were difficult to come by, such was their sporadic nature.
Crews from Western Power Distribution in Wales arrived in Rosslare Europort on Wednesday evening, and are now on the ground assisting ESB Networks crews in the worst impacted areas of Waterford and Wexford
At its peak there were 109,000 customers across the country without water. By Thursdy, this was reduced to less than 25,000, approximately 7,200 of whom are in Wexford.
Wexford County Council said that between 1 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. on Monday, it logged 135 calls to its emergency contact centre at County Hall.
‘Voxpro (our Out of Hours emergency contact line) logged a further 30 calls to 9 a.m. this morning,’ said communications manager David Minogue.
‘At 7 p.m. yesterday (Monday) evening, as the worst of the storm abated, our response crews mobilised and 140 of our staff turned their attention to the cleanup operation.
‘Twenty items of heavy equipment were used in the task of removing fallen trees. Priority was given to National Routes, followed by Regional Routes and by midnight last night all National Roads were once again passable,’ said Mr Minogue. He said all regional roads were passable by 9 a.m.
An assessment is currently under way of the county coastline to determine the extent of the damage. Recent coast protection works have helped to minimise the storm impact, however, a number of trees at the Raven Nature Reserve were knocked down in the storm, some as a result of the protected dunes being eroded by the force of the winds.
Meanwhile, the Irish Lights vessel Granuaile is in the area of Tuskar Lighthouse which was damaged by Storm Ophelia and since last Monday has only been operating at 50 per cent capacity.
However the crew was unable to access the lighthouse because of the high seas.