Hundreds in Longford without power after Storm Darragh

Longford businesses are counting the cost and there are still many homes in the county without power as Storm Darragh raged on Friday night / Saturday morning, devastatingly knocking trees and cutting electricity supply.

As of Sunday over 2,300 homes were without power. Schools and businesses in Longford town were badly affected due to power and water outages.

The Athena Fine Art Gallery & Café in Longford was one of the businesses impacted.

Anna Peters, proprietor of Athena, told the Leader, “We had no water on Sunday morning so we were only affected for a short amount of time.

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“We didn’t have any loss of electricity.

“But it did affect the business big time yesterday morning because the actual orders didn’t go through.”

“We had no water on Sunday morning so we were only affected for a short amount of time.

“We didn’t have any loss of electricity.

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“But it did affect the business big time yesterday morning because the actual orders didn’t go through.”

Athena Gallery is also a cafe that serves sandwiches and soup. Unfortunately due to the storm, their food orders did not arrive so they had no stock on Monday. However, they are back to normal as of now.

“So none of our orders came in yesterday morning which meant we couldn’t do soups and sandwiches and everything.

“We’ve only started doing it and we’re just getting into it so we were a bit disappointed really,” they concluded.

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ESB, The Electric Supply Board got in touch with us regarding the number of homes and businesses still facing the effects of Storm Darragh's destruction.

According to Paul Hand, “Several thousand customers were impacted as a result of Storm Darragh in the early hours of Saturday morning.

“Crews mobilised immediately to restore power in impacted areas, with all available resources deployed and working long hours through the weekend and today,” he added.

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Today people across the county are still feeling the effects of the power outages.

“As of 11 am this morning, there are approximately 300 customers without power in Longford, across Longford Town, Aghamore and Ballymahon areas,” he explained.

In the Moatfarrell area, 72 homes are still without power. It is expected that it won’t be returned until 8:15 pm tonight.

37 ESB customers remain powerless in the Drumlish areas as well and aren’t expected to see it return until tomorrow morning.

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Ballymahon still has 58 customers without power, it is estimated to be restored at 2 pm on Thursday.

In terms of water outages Drumlish, Aughnacliffe, Newtownforbes, Edgeworthstown, Moatfield, Abbeylara and Moat Farrell have all reported water outage issues over the past few days.

Schools throughout Longford town were closed yesterday due to power and Water outages.

St Mel’s College, Mean Scoil Mhuire, Gaeilscoil Longfoirt, St Joseph’s National School and Templemichael College were all closed.

Trees were also knocked by the strong winds, one fell near St Anne’s Church but thankfully no one was injured and no damage occured.