Warning over trees damaged by Atiyah
»»7,000 homes are »»strong winds and »»travel services still without power heavy rain on way back up & running
TREES already weakened by Storm Atiyah could be brought down by another blast of Atlantic gales today.
Met Eireann last night issued a weather alert for strong winds and heavy rain but fell short of issuing a coloured warning.
A forecaster said: “Generally winds will be below warning thresholds but damage to some structures and trees, already weakened from the effects of Storm Atiyah, is possible.”
The bad weather plunged 27,000 homes and businesses into darkness as power lines came crashing down at the weekend. But most had their power restored early yesterday.
ESB predicted most of the 7,000 customers still without electricity would be back online by last night.
At one point several hundred homes around Inch, Co Kerry, were blacked out along with hundreds more in Loughatala, Co Tipperary, and Midleton, Co Cork.
Most of the other outages were in small pockets in rural areas.
Met Eireann said more strong gusts are expected today.
But they won’t be as strong as the 128kmh recorded at Newport in Co Mayo, on Sunday – the highest in the country.
It’s going to be a miserable and unsettled week with blustery winds, outbreaks of heavy rain and very cold.
Local authority crews were out from dawn yesterday clearing fallen trees, poles and debris from roads in counties Kerry, Sligo, Wicklow, Kilkenny and Longford.
In Ballydavid, on the Dingle peninsula, an entire garden shed and its contents was blown on to the road. But emergency services breathed a sigh of relief as the storm passed without injuries or loss of life. A tree blown down by the storm fell on a parked car but there were no occupants inside at the time. The Status Orange wind warning for nine counties ended at 6am yesterday. Irish Rail said trains operated as normal yesterday as they lifted precautionary speed limits on Munster rail services.
Nine flights into Cork Airport were cancelled and others were diverted to Shannon and Dublin as gusts hit 85kmh.
But services were back to normal yesterday.
The storm swept across the Irish Sea into Wales overnight, leading to some power cuts.