Thousands without power, fallen trees and bridge closures in place as Storm Bram batters Wexford
LATEST |
A fallen tree and power lines blocking the road between Bridgetown and Baldwinstown in Wexford.
A fallen tree blocks the Newline Road near Wellingtonbridge, Co Wexford.
A fallen tree on the road between Taghmon and Larkin’s Cross, Co Wexford.
A road sign bends in the wind in Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford.
Fallen trees and powerlines, spot flooding and power outages are just some of the things that Co Wexford is dealing with in the midst of Storm Bram.While some saw their service interrupted only temporarily, up to 10,000 homes and businesses were left without power across the county at lunchtime, as ESB workers scramble to deal with fallen power lines, a fault in Bellefield in Enniscorthy being the biggest outage with 2,577 homes impacted, with a further 1,237 in Scarawalsh and 1745 in Ballycullane. There were other smaller outages in areas like Kilmore, Rosslare and parts of Gorey including Ballymoney and Courtown.
A common occurrence in high winds, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge in New Ross was closed to traffic from lunchtime, with diversions in place through the town.
Meanwhile, several roads were blocked or partially blocked around the county due to fallen trees and power lines.
The road was completely blocked between Baldwinstown and Bridgetown, due to a fallen tree and powerlines, as was the Newline Road at Coolbrook, just outside of Wellingtonbridge. Roads were also partially blocked by fallen trees at Cushinstown and between Taghmon and Larkin’s Cross.
A road sign bends in the wind in Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford.
These are just a few examples of issues with fallen trees and powerlines across the county and people are warned to drive with care if they have to travel this afternoon. The ESB is highlighting the dangers posed by fallen live wires, asking the public and emergency services to stay away from fallen cables and report such cases immediately via their emergency number 1800 372999. Meanwhile their powercheck website will keep customers updated as to estimated restoration times, although a degree of patience may be required.
While there had been major fears that the village of Bridgetown would flood again and water pumps were deployed on Monday afternoon, local councillor Jim Codd says that the village seems to have dodged a bullet on this occasion.
“The tide is falling in Bridgetown,” he said. “I think we have escaped. Very strong to gale force south westerly winds hammering our coast line though, and we also have high tides. Please avoid. We don’t need to bring out our emergency services.”
There were reports of some flooding on the road near the community centre in Castlebridge, with the water rising around a vehicle parked in the car park there.
In advance of the storm, Wexford County Council warned that it would be a “multi-hazard event” bringing serious risk of flooding and high winds.
Are there any other major storm related incidents that people should be aware of? If so, please feel free to contact padraig.byrne@independent.ie with any photos and brief explanation of the situation.
