Misery for hundreds of Meath households heading into fourth day without electricity/water
Elderly people reliant on electricity for oxygen supplies and medical monitoring equipment are among heading into their fourth day without power and are being told in some cases that supply won't be restored for days to come.
Thousands of people across Co Meath have endured a truly miserable few days in the aftermath of Storm Eowyn that wreaked havoc on the country's electricity and water networks with some of the most vulnerable members of our communities particularly suffering.
As of 12pm today (Sunday) ESB Networks has restored supply to 438,000 homes, farms and businesses - 330,000 customers remain without supply.
"Storm Éowyn brought unprecedented, widespread and extensive damage to electricity infrastructure resulting in 768,000 customers losing supply on 24 January. This is by far the worst storm experienced by ESB Networks both in terms of customers losing supply and the scale of damage across the network", ESB Networks said in statement.
Emergency crews have been working tirelessly to restore power after the record-breaking winds that smashed into Ireland in the early hours of Friday morning and led to one tragic fatality in Co Donegal.
Many parts of the county came back online over the weekend but many hundreds of business and homeowners in Co Meath have had to endure days without power and water with freezing conditions and lack of clarity as to when power will be restored.
Indeed some of those affected are being told (via ESB Networks Powercheck) not to expect restoration before 2nd February, a full week away.
The Meath Chronicle asked to speak to people affected by power and water outages. We have been inundated with responses.
GALLERY: Your photos as Storm Eowyn leaves its mark on Co Meath
One reader told us of her elderly uncle-in-law who is 100% reliant on oxygen and has been without power for over two days. "Due to his condition and serious illness he cannot be moved from his house where he has no heat as well. He lives less than 7kms from Trim on a main road and power is not estimated to return until Monday night to the area.
"I grew up with a sick parent reliant on electricity as he was peg fed, electric bed and on occasions like these - 30 years ago - the ESB would come to our house and hook up a generator, however in my uncle-in-law's case this does not happen. He is cold, stressed and low on oxygen. Seems unbelievable in this day and age that this is the case.
"While we all understand the stress that the ESB is under and doing their best my frustration with this situation is that we seem to have gone backwards over the years. Also now the out of hours oxygen company is uncontactable since my last message causing additional stress as he does not have portable oxygen to get him through the day."
In Rathcore near Enfield, Sara Lupo who lives with her partner and three-year-old child in a mobile home on her father's land said she feared for her life when the full fury of Storm Eowyn hit.
Sara is also very worried about her father who is waiting on a heart transplant and has a special device which needs power to send a reading of his heart to the Mater Hospital.
"My dad is living in the house and myself and my partner and our three-year-old is living in a mobile home on my dad’s land. My God, on Thursday night myself and my partner thought the roof was going to blow off the mobile home. He has the four corners of the mobile tied down. But we have never been so scared in all our lives of that night! The cold here is unbelievable. All I could think about was what do and what to grab if something was to happen! Also my fridge and freezer was full of food which now all has to be binned! It’s affecting my mental health really bad with pure worry!"
Mairead Ahern, living with husband Frank in their cottage on the Athboy to Delvin road thought they had been lucky when they didn't lose power during the early hours of Friday when the onslaught of Storm Eowyn was at its height.
"We had power until Friday night at 10:30, so we were ok initially, thinking that we were after escaping it all, then it went.
"It could be a whole lot worse. We're fairly optimistic people. It's cold, but we're lucky in that we have an open fire, so that keeps us cozy and but we're on a pump and a well, so we've no water, that's the worst of it but at least we have a little bit of heat there.
Frank and Mairead know they have neighbours in a similar position and are hoping that they will get power back sooner rather than later and are hoping their current estimated restoration time of the 29th (Wednesday), is shortened as crews get to grips with repairs.
The couple praised the local community for pulling together to help where possible.
"People in the town are great. The guys in the Darnley Lodge were helping us out, and allowing us to charge two phones, a battery pack and a laptop.
Asked if they had done much to prepare for the storm, Frank says that the power outages are becoming the norm.
"I think we're kind of used to power going off anyway, so it's pointless filling the fridge or freezer, because, you know, it's just going to go on us.
"We do have a lot of trees around the house. We're actually blessed. We're delighted there was no structural damage. That was great. We could be in an awful lot worse position."
John Fleming in Kildalkey doesn't know when power to his home in The Meadows estate will be restored.
"It's been a bit of a nightmare here. We're in the middle of the village. Nobody in the village seems to have power but areas around us do.
"We've just gone up to (wife) Joan's mother who lives in Ballivor to charge up laptops and phones and everything else. And now with this mini storm today (Sunday) when you compare it to Friday, I can't see them out working today. I'll be very surprised if the're out working tonight.
John has good reason to suggest matters could have been a lot worse for the Fleming family. Their precious Réailtín, who had very complex medical needs passed away just over a year ago just a week short of her eighth birthday and the storm and subsequent power outages would have made it very difficult to protect her from days without power and heat.
"If we had Réailtín still with us we would have been in a very bad way. We would have had to bring her somewhere, because we would have had her feeder charged up, and you'd have other stuff ready to go. And you probably get about 25 to 48 hours there, if you were lucky. But I think, from Friday, looking at the extent of the storm, we would have probably had to bring her into the hospital, but mercifully she's not around to live through this because, it would have been a struggle."
- Editor's Note: We have received so many messages from people and we will get to them all and get back to you throughout the day and tomorrow.