Updated 12:43pm

ESB MAINTENANCE CREWS are still working to restore the electricity supply of some 5,000 customers after a storm left tens of thousands without power yesterday.

Crews scrambled to work from first light yesterday, with some 70,000 people without power yesterday morning after what the company described as “the worst storm in 15 years”.

Workers managed to repair faults and restore power to 65,000 customers but ESB said today that in areas where storms have caused extensive damage to the networks, “fixing the smaller, more localised faults can be frustratingly slow” for both customers and technicians.

Today will be a difficult and long day, with an average of eight customers per  fault, progress will be frustratingly slow for the effort expended.

Many of the faults have been caused by falling trees and branches and these need to be cut and removed before the fault can be repaired and supply restored. In addition, some new faults overnight  has increased the work for the crews.

Crews have travelled from areas less affected to assist in the South and South West where the majority of the faults occurred.

During the period 18 – 27 December, seven days were classified as ‘storm’ days and ESB said technicians have now been “working long days in extreme conditions to restore supply to customers”.

The impact on customers of this recent storm was 10 times the average of customer minutes lost during a storm.

Further updates are expected later today.

First published 8:36am

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