UK, Ireland Storm Éowyn leaves hundreds of thousands without power
Many people have been advised to stay at home, with schools closed and public transport halted in some areas
Hurricane-strength winds battered Ireland and the UK early Friday morning as Storm Eowyn barrelled in from the Atlantic, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power, grounding flights and shutting schools, officials said.
Éowyn brought record gusts of 183km (114 miles) per hour in Galway in the west of Ireland, according to the Irish meteorological service Met Eireann.
ESB, the state-owned energy utility, said that as of 6am local time, 560,000 homes, farms and businesses were without power. Power lines were brought down, felled trees blocked roads and an ice-skating rink near Dublin was destroyed.
As the storm approached, authorities across Ireland, Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland issued red-level weather alerts, closing schools and universities and telling people to shelter in place. Many businesses shut, and public transport networks came to a halt.
Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill warned there was a “genuine threat to life and property”, saying the region was “in the eye of the storm”.
“We’re asking the public to be very safe, to be very cautious, to take every precaution to ensure that they don’t take any unnecessary travel, please just stay at home if you can,” she told BBC radio.
