Power outages reported after Storm Claudia hits Ireland’s south-east

Power outages have been reported and floods have hit some areas after Storm Claudia moved over the island of Ireland.

Thousands of homes and businesses were without power on Saturday morning as rain weather warnings lifted in the south-east.

Dramatic flooding was reported in Portarlington, on the border of counties Laois and Offaly, despite no rain warning being issued for those counties.

Fallen trees have blocked roads in parts of the country and social media videos appear to show sea foam being dramatically whipped onto shore at Loughshinny, Dublin and Bray, Co Wicklow.

The ESB said fewer than 2,000 homes, farms and businesses were without power as of 1.45pm and that crews had been responding to outages since Friday.

A spokesman said the storm brought a “modest impact” to electricity infrastructure in line with previous such wind warnings.

A status orange rain warning was in place for counties Dublin, Wexford and Wicklow until 8am on Saturday, while a status yellow rain warning was in place in 10 other counties, mostly along the east and south coasts, until 9am.

Weather forecaster Met Eireann warned people to be alert for “significant” flooding and hazardous travelling conditions.

Keith Leonard, national director for Fire and Emergency Management, said local authorities had been preparing since Thursday for heavy rainfall.

He said a risk of flooding would remain after the weather alerts lifted, as water levels could still rise, and that fallen leaves clogging drains were a “complicating factor”.

Stena Line said that some ferry services on Friday had been cancelled due to adverse weather.

In Northern Ireland, a yellow-level rain warning is in place in counties Armagh and Down until noon on Saturday, bringing a risk of flooding and hazardous travelling conditions.

Speaking on Co Kildare, Irish deputy premier Simon Harris said that he was grateful to those trying to reconnect people on Saturday morning.

He said there were “far too many” communities where funding was announced for flood defence had been announced but the timeline for their delivery was “still taking too long”.

“I think it’s a cause of huge frustration to communities that are on a list for a flood defence scheme the length of time it takes from being put on that list to the delivery.”

He was speaking at the Fine Gael Agriculture and Rural Affairs Development Conference.

“On one level, we were obviously living through a period of significant climate change, more adverse weather events, and there’s a huge amount of evidence to suggest that that is likely to be an ongoing scenario.

“Having said that, we can’t kind of be defeatist or fatalistic in relation to this, there are more things we can and should be doing ourselves as a country to make our communities and our towns more resilient.”

He said that the delivery of flood defence schemes should be part of the infrastructure boost the Government is promising to deliver, and said that the infrastructure of gullies and drains and how they can become blocked should also be examined.