⚠️ Storm Éowyn - Fri 24.01.25 (**Please read Mod Instruction in OP.**)

Do people have any recorded footage of the peek of the storm? Around 3-4am?

Just read about the no-compensation situation by ESB, because this was “an act of God”. I’m sorry, but… what? ESB is dismissing the fact that the state of electricity wooden poles is deplorable country-wide. I’ve been seeing lots of poles leaning like they’re about to fall for years, especially on country roads, and that is NOT an act of God but just lack of maintenance in their behalf. So it’s no wonder when there’s a storm -big or not-, this happens. It actually happens more often than not even with just hard rain, and this is not acceptable, especially given the price we’re paying for electricity and the profits utilities are making from us.

Here's the latest from George Lee. Reminder that he gets paid 180k per year to produce articles like this

He makes some decent points but also seems to contradict himself and pads out his work with waffle and stating the obvious.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said clearly in its science reports that it has very little confidence about the links between extreme wind events like Storm Éowyn and climate change"

"If power supply is disrupted every time there is a storm, and if those storms are guaranteed to get bigger and more frequent, then people’s confidence in making the necessary investment and transformation required for climate action will be undermined"

"The biggest storm in a century"

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/0202/1494278-storm-analysis-lee/

Opportunism (which include price gouging) is human nature. In my area, a convenience store had power while others didn't. Result, a couple of euros was put on the price of hot food.

There have been warnings about opportunists (likely "travelling salesmen") selling poor quality or stolen generators/chainsaws in areas that were badly affected by the storm.

Manoeuvring is also happening, some restaurants are getting coverage in the media complaining about the cost of generators and losing stock due to freezers having no power. Give them money. Of course what we won't hear about is that others made a killing during this. Some chippers had to close early on the Friday because they were sold out. Any chipper that had sufficient stocks would have done great business for several more days.

Day 10. 50,000 customers without power still. They must be cracking up. I have heard of several locals moving into hotels for a night just to get clean and warm.

In general it's not actually rotten poles that cause the problems, yes they can break but the mass destruction of the networks was caused by trees. Also the leaning poles on country lanes are more than likely eir poles. Alot of people mix up eir and ESB poles.

For those living in rural area (like me), I honesty am shocked by the lack of self sufficiency.

The root problem is no power for more than 2 days.

A small number of things that helped us bridge the gap of no power :

- a battery radio, several torches and battery led lights.
- camping gas stove or bbq with gas tank
- super ser or equivalent for heat.
if you are on your own water well like me, I have a backup manual pump to move water from the well to the attic tank. We buy 5L drums of water for drinking/cooking

I do not have a generator but will invest in one this time

All the above we have built up over 15 years of storms and outage.

Exactly the same as yourself. Not sure whether to get a petrol generator or a portable power pack. Swings and roundabouts

Like yourself, I live in a rural area, the line feeding my house runs up through forestry. My house is a new house built 5 years ago. We had a storm three years ago and we lost supply for 3 days. After that storm I bought a 10kva generator and got a changeover switch fitted. I also have a well for my water. So if I ever lose supply again Im self sufficient.

I have visited 3 large mixed forests since the storm. They all had networks of walking paths. It's absolutely chaos in them. Most of the paths are well and truly blocked. Some mighty large old trees have fallen too which is sad. Oak, Beech etc.

I'm allergic to leylandeis, so I really hate to cut them too.
I've heard that since Ivy is native its actually an overall benefit for the natural woodland, especially since it feeds birds in winter with its fruit.

Though I did notice a few downed infected ash and some small hawthorns covered in Ivy in the local park.

Note the black on the inside of the tree.
There were plenty of other species down in the wood though, from Oak to beech to spruce you name it.

I had a simple lead acid jump starter/power pack (0.2kwh) from halfords that I used to run the internet before during short powercuts ( a few hours)
I also got a 500w inverter for 60Euro that I used to run the TV, the fridge & my aquarium the odd time.
My jump starter could be charged back up maybe to 60% quite quickly by connecting it in parallel to the car battery, so I kept it topped up that way. Can the anker banks be charged easily from a car?
I was offline for 5.5 days this time but my previous record was 1.5 days after Debi in autumn 23.
I thought Id get enough out of a 15kwh power bank (1600Eur on Ali express) to last me. But after Eowyn I'm thinking a generator might be a better option.
Another potentially bigger problem was water. I'll install a few water butts & maybe use my aquarium pumps to pump up to the attic next time.
It would have been handy if I could have plugged my power bank into my boiler, it only needs 100W peak to run.

Older vulnerable people should be given advice on this sort of house resiliency in case of future storms.

Source of heat: stove, superser etc or powerbank/generator switch running to the boiler.
Cooking: gas stove, bbq
short term power: battery banks for phones & low power devices.
longer term power: large power banks in kwh range, larger car inverter or generator.
Water: water butts with low voltage pumps
communications: not sure what options people have here other than Starlink!? Battery radio might help.

Suspect the poster can't tell the difference between telephone and electricity poles.

I wouldn't burn the wood either, it is meant to mess up your chimney. Another tip on these horrible trees is to top them at the desired height before they get too big and they will not grow any higher than that. If neglected they will just keep growing and blocking light and becoming more of a danger in high winds, then you are looking at a big bill from a tree surgeon to top them.

I reckon mine were growing at about 3 feet a year. That's a lot of work to keep them topped and it got too much for me. They definitely kept growing after topping. A neighbour bought the field surrounding 2 sides of my house and took out all the trees bordering his field, with my permission. Around 60 or so in total. All taken down in one morning before lunch 😊. The remaining trees on the other side are a bit of an issue as there's a ditch in the way.

Regarding burning, I'm still burning them many years later. Don't know about it messing up the chimney.

I hate them trees with a vengance! If the next storm took them all out, I would be very happy!