Thousands without power in Northern Ireland

BBC NIE workers in hi-viz hello jackets watching a cherry picker repair a damaged electric pole — Customers are being told it may be a number of days before they are reconnected

Community assistance centres will open later for the thousands of households who are still without power after Storm Darragh.

At the peak of the storm on Saturday, some 48,000 homes had no mains electricity but as of 09:00 GMT on Sunday, the number now stands at 15,000.

NIE Networks say it may be a number of days before they can reconnect all those affected.

The energy provider said it had deployed 600 staff and was working to bring in additional personnel from across the UK.

Over the course of the storm, nearly 100,000 customers had been affected by power cuts.

NIE Networks operations manager Alex Houston said: “Most of the faults affecting high numbers of customers have been repaired which has allowed us to restore significant numbers of customers.

“However, there are still around 1,200 faults across the network some of which are affecting very small numbers of customers so we do anticipate that it will take some time before we can get all of these cleared.”

Storm Darragh causes widespread disruption in Northern Ireland

Assistance centres

NIE Networks will open community assistance across Northern Ireland on Sunday.

From 14:00 to 16:00 GMT on 8 December, leisure centres in the following areas will open to offer assistance to those still without power:

South Lake Leisure Centre in Craigavon
Lagan Valley Leisureplex in Lisburn
Ards Blair Mayne in Newtownards
Seven Towers in Ballymena
Cookstown Leisure Centre
Kilkeel Leisure Centre
Fermanagh Lakeland Forum

Additionally, Coleraine Leisure Centre will open from noon until 15:00 GMT on Sunday.

The centres will offer warm drinks, charging and changing facilities and NIE Networks staff will be on hand to answer any queries.

The Red Cross will also be working with NIE to provide support in a number of locations across Northern Ireland.

Pacemaker A black car half-suspended mid air, wrapped in a large fallen tree, a fence and parked white vehicle are also visible

An amber warning for wind – the second highest level of weather warning – was issued from 01:00 GMT until 15:00 on Saturday.

A yellow wind warning had them come in until 06:00 on Sunday.

The Department for Infrastructure (DfI) said it responded to about 900 incidents, mainly debris on roads, fallen trees and flooding.

Essential travel only was advised on Saturday and there were several road traffic accidents.

A substantial number of road closures remain in place and road users are advised to plan their journeys in advance.

At one point on Saturday morning, there were no trains running in Northern Ireland but many lines have now resumed albeit with delays.

Bus services, flights and ferries were also affected.

Electricity generation was temporarily suspended at Ballylumford, one of Northern Ireland’s main power stations, after the natural gas-fired power station reported structural damage to one of its smaller chimneys.

A number of festive events were cancelled and councils closed some facilities on Saturday and Sunday.

All six Irish Premiership games were cancelled, with late postponements having left fans in an “appalling situation”, according to Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.