Almost 325,000 homes and businesses are without power across the country this afternoon (Saturday), as Storm Darragh has brought with it fallen trees and debris, and caused travel disruption across county Wexford and the country.
Wexford Gardaí have urged motorists to take extreme caution on the roads, to drive responsibly, and to only travel when it is safe to do so.
Cleanup operations are underway across the county, as a number of incidents have been reported.
A full list of all of the incidents reported to us can be found across various posts on our Facebook page which can be found by clicking HERE.
Trees have been reported as being down in areas such as White Rock Hill, Kilmuckridge, Ferns, Oulart, Kilmuckridge, Courtown, Kerlogue, Oulart, Coolattin, Clough, Castledockerell and Kiltealy.
In Bunclody, the Carnew Road near the FCJ Secondary School was reported as being blocked due to a tree down there, while in nearby Clohamon, a tree fell on a car outside of the Slaney Meats factory – though it’s thought that no one was injured.
Director of Services with Wexford County Council, Eamonn Hore, told South East Radio more about the cleanup operation this afternoon (Saturday):
“Our crews and contractors are out trying to deal with the aftermath of Storm Darragh. There was numerous trees down as you know, the road is blocked at the FCJ in Bunclody, fallen power lines have caused that to be blocked. We have trees down at Horeswood, Tintern, Ferns, Bunclody Glenbrien, basically all over the county. Lots of them are being cleared at the moment and it’ll take the best part of the day. Now, there’s a lot of debris on the roads, so people should still be very careful. Those will remain blocked for some hours until we reach them all and as I say, we have everybody else working, including contractors.”
Eamonn predicts that the cleanup operation should be completed early today in southern parts of the county, and later today in northern parts:
“Particularly in the north, winds are still very strong. It’s quite dangerous. But in the county, say from the southern end down, we’d hope to have all the roads open by about midday and maybe by this evening we should have all the trees and all the roads cleared for people to travel on.”
