Clare County Council urged to be ‘Winter Ready’ for extreme weather this season

With winter closing in, councillors are urging people across Clare to be fully prepared for severe weather events after Storm Éowyn left 37,783 homes and businesses without power earlier this year.

At the October meeting of Clare County Council, Cllr Joe Garrihy called on the council to "ensure that our county and communities are fully prepared and 'Winter Ready' to deal with any extreme weather events similar to those experienced over the last number of years."

He requested the council review emergency plans, strengthen measures to protect infrastructure and services, provide training for staff and volunteers, and engage communities to raise awareness of emergency preparedness.

Cllr Michael Shannon agreed with the sentiment stating they "learned a lot during Storm Eowyn" adding that "we [the council] need to have a program" of preparedness in cases of extreme weather.

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He identified one of the major issues faced by the county during the storm - particularly given the power outages which thousands experienced across the county "For a couple of days throughout some areas, they were without communication for three or four days - no landlines for a fortnight."

Cllr Alan O’Callaghan acknowledged that Storm Éowyn was “frightful for a lot of people,” detailing: “What was real shocking for me personally was when I saw the electricity was shut down for a long period of time — that people with disabilities, who required supplemental medical equipment in their home such as a dialysis machine,” suddenly faced unprecedented critical situations.

Cllr Antoinette Baker-Bashua, when voicing her support for the motion, also raised the concerns of "how disabled people had no way of access" to the supports they needed during the storm.

Cllr Rita McInerney also proposed a similar motion at the meeting: She called on Clare County Council "to publish a report on the update to the Clare Emergency Management Plan,  incorporating the key learnings from Storm Éowyn."

She also recommended that the council should prepare a simple infographic - a PDF which could be distributed digitally - to help people especially those in rural areas, to understand steps to take and contacts available to them in cases of extreme bad weather, that the councillors could share on their social media pages. She suggested this "can be downloaded ahead of time, that people can print."

The PDF would have "all the essential information available about what to do and where to go" in the case of extreme weather conditions.

Adrian Kelly, Chief Fire Officer and Building Control Officer, in  response to both motions, assured Clare County Council's commitment to be prepared and to ensure the "safety and resilience" of communities across in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

He told elected members there is a robust response strategy in place to deal with emergencies that includes a number of key elements

* Clare County Council Major Emergency Plan

* Severe Weather Plan

* Winter Maintenance Plan

* Flood Plans

* Regional Communications Plan

These plans incorporate various functions that enable engagement with relevant agencies through Local Co-Ordination Groups, Crisis Management Teams, interagency communications, and links to national level at the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management and Met Eireann."

He continued to outline: "Many of the issues that were seen in the aftermath of Storm Eowyn (and other similar events) such as prolonged power outages and communications failures are outside the remit of local authority, however as part of the overall co-ordination of the response, the Local Co-Ordination Group led by Clare County Council, included representation ESB Networks and Uisce Eireann in addition to An Garda Siochana and the Health Services Executive."

"For Storm Eowyn, in particular, once the extent of damage caused by the storm was determined, as a part of a national strategy, the Council provided assistance to communities by establishing community support hubs at a number of locations around the county." which Cllr O'Callaghan had praised, "Post Offices became a little hub [during the storm], for small things like charging mobile phones, tablets for kids."

Kelly further reaffirmed that: "It is intended that supports to communities will be strengthened further based on lessons learned following this event."