Management at Galway County Council has appealed to the public for patience as the local authority and other agencies continue deal with the fallout from ferocious Storm Éowyn.

Chief Executive of the Council, Liam Conneally asked the public to ‘bear with us’ as the local authority continued its clean-up this week after Éowyn, which he described as the worst storm to ever hit Galway.

The Council’s response to the damage caused by the storm would continue well into next week, he said.

Mr Conneally said the clean-up effort was the biggest the County Council ever had to deal due to the ferocity of the storm, and the extensive damage caused right across County Galway.

He, along with senior Council staff, was on the National Emergency Co-Ordination Group and the West’s Regional Emergency Co-Ordination Group, which met regularly before, during and after the severe weather event to coordinate a response by all agencies.

Director of Services Uinsinn Finn said electricity will be restored, water will return, and roads will reopen, but the most important thing was that because of the warnings and safety measures and precautions that were put in place, nobody in Galway was killed or seriously injured by the storm.

Mr Finn said the initial response of the Council was focused on access – to reopen the roads, prioritising national and regional roads, and local roads where there were concerns for vulnerable people.

But the response then switched from access to a humanitarian one – trying to respond to the needs of people without water, power, heat and communications such as broadband for several days.

Caption: Galway County Council Chief Executive, Liam Conneally.

See full coverage of the fall-out from Storm Éowyn in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.