Time to get proactive on storm measures

One man the Celt spoke to this week said there had been radio silence from the government in the wake of Storm Éowyn - the most powerful to hit Ireland in living memory. His frustration is understandable.

While it wasn’t quite radio silence (there were plenty of PR statements from our government leaders not to mention meetings of the National Emergency Co-ordination Group), some of it seems to have been lip service.

How does this keep happening? Something has to change.

At the height of the problem, there were over three quarters of a million premises without power on Friday, many of which still remain in the dark. At the time of going to print, some people were still being given dates in the first week February for expected restoration.

One cannot fault the outdoor workers with ESB and Irish Water, fire fighters and council staff who worked tirelessly in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions to try and restore services to customers.

One can, however, fault the lack of forward planning for these type of weather events, which we are being told are only going to become more frequent and severe.

We need to see real action in this regard. On the one hand we are being told we must become more environmentally friendly. You cannot get planning permission now for new build with a chimney for solid fuel for example. Where would many householders have been without their open fires or solid fuel stoves and ranges this past week?

How many young families had to decamp to the family home - where there was a fire in one room at least and perhaps some water from a private well? Those with gas hobs were luckier still.

And let’s not forget that the night that followed the storm saw sub zero temperatures. How would many of our older neighbours and elderly people coped without their trusty ranges?

The government is also trying to push us towards electric vehicles. An EV would have been much use to the household that’s still without power five days after the storm.

There are big budgets to encourage houses to retrofit- almost half a billion for 2025. These are welcome budgets. But the government must seriously think about putting some scheme in place to help install proper generators in private homes. Certainly it might not be perceived as ‘green’ burning diesel to boil the kettle or cook a dinner, but such a backup is needed in times of extreme circumstance.

Furthermore, Ireland needs to invest in mobile power generators so Uisce Éireann and operators of group water schemes can keep the water flowing.

MEP Ciaran Mullooly made that call over the weekend. He said the government should have been more proactive in terms of sourcing emergency assistance from our EU counterparts.

MEP Mullooly was right too when he said: “There is no appreciation in parts of Dublin about the conditions in some parts of the country, especially in rural Ireland.

“Tens of thousands of people have no power or water, they can’t make phone calls, they can’t text and have no broadband.

“It’s like the 1930s living in some places, with people driving 50 miles to make a phone call.”

One has to wonder that if Dublin was so impacted, in terms of losing power and water, would a national emergency have been declared?

The cost of this storm is another burden on already hard-hit householders. The contents of fridges and freezers in many cases have had to be dumped. It’s a waste of time chasing your home insurance provider for the money as in many cases the excess is cost prohibitive.

Families are now left were left with little choice but to buy hot food from takeaways and restaurants - a further expense if you have a large family.

Others brought washing to launderettes, trying to get clothes clean and dry. Uniforms were needed on Monday for schools that did open.

If there is a silver lining to this storm, it’s that community spirit soared again - from neighbours helping one another with supplies, or cutting up trees that blocked roads etc to the local authority and GAA and some private businesses coming together to initiate the community hubs to provide people with hot showers, charging stations and somewhere to get warm.

It’s amazing to see what businesses and community groups can do, at the click of a finger, in a crisis. It would be good to see some of that spark in government in terms of putting in place measures and solutions to mitigate against the impact of the next storm.