Thousands without power as Storm Frank batters Ireland

3,800 homes and businesses are without power on Wednesday morning after Storm Frank lashed the country over night.

The areas affected are the south-west, south-east and north-west coastal areas.

The biggest single outage is in Tullow Co Carlow where 1200 customers are without power.

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A spokesman for the ESB said crews have been out since 6am this morning working to restore power in difficult conditions.

People should not approach fallen power lines and should report any to 1850 372 999, he said. It is hoped that power will be restored to all customers by this evening.

Meanwhile Met Éireann is considering naming a second storm which is due to lash Ireland immediately after the deep Atlantic depression known as Storm Frank clears later on Wednesday.

Storm Frank began to make landfall in western areas on Tuesday, and while forecaster Evelyn Cusack said it would remain the main weather event over 24 hours, she said there will be a “sting in the tail” for western coastal counties for a period of around two hours on Wednesday which may require further weather warnings to be issued.

“The next band of rain is now into Kerry and into the southwest of Ireland, and that’s sweeping up across the country this evening,” she said, with gusts of 120 km/hr and rainfall of up to 7cm expected from Storm Frank alone.

“The strong winds and the rain will be clearing overnight and there will be a respite. There’s going to be a sting in the tail, there’s going to be a small window of very, very strong winds and a brief spell of heavy rain from a secondary area of low pressure which will run up along the west coast,” she added, referring to the second weather event as a “different storm”.

The effects of Storm Frank coincide with high tides, and the occurrence of large waves pounding northern, southern and western shores means the structural integrity of some sea walls may be compromised according to the Office of Public Works (OPW).

“If there are weaknesses in seawalls they may indeed be exploited by the conditions over the next 48 hours, but we can’t really predict things like that, it really depends on the conditions of different sea walls,” said Jim Casey of the OPW at a meeting of the National Co-ordination Group today.

Ireland won’t be buffeted by the hurricane force winds at Frank’s epicentre in the Atlantic, but storm force winds off coastal areas have the capacity to whip up abnormally large waves from the ocean swell, and authorities have warned pedestrians and motorists to beware of waves overtopping sea walls.

The Coast Guard has maintained its advice for members of the public to avoid exposed seafronts and piers on all coasts over the next 24 hours.

While not quite as severe a rainstorm as Desmond, the latest orange rainfall warning comes as ground across the country is already saturated, meaning additional flooding may yet occur in areas that haven’t been affected so far.

Met Éireann says the orange rainfall warning has now been extended to Wexford and Kilkenny, and spot flooding remains a concern nationwide.

Coastal counties including Kerry and Cork, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo and Donegal are expected to be worst affected, with four weather alerts for wind and rain- two orange and two yellow- affecting the entire country today and tomorrow.

Information sources:

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