It is a week since Storm Éowyn ripped the gable end off Shane and Emma Egan’s home and there is no knowing when they will be able to return to it.
The ferocity of the storm caused cracks to appear in some of the surrounding homes in the Esker Hills estate in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and there is debris from the storm still on the green space.
One resident put his tools in the shed for safekeeping . When he woke up in the morning the shed was gone, but the tools were still there.
Ms Egan was alone in the house with her two youngest sons Joey (7) and Oliver (5) when the storm hit in the early hours of Friday morning. Luckily, Joey was not sleeping in his bedroom, which is closest to the gable end. Shane and the couple’s oldest son, Tommy (11), were in Manchester at a football match.
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“I felt a massive crash and the whole house shook. It shook so loudly and it crashed so hard that I thought it was something coming down in the house. The wardrobes and all the windows were banging. I was crying holding on to the two kids,” she said.
Yet, she could find no internal damage and went back to sleep only to be woken up in the morning by a neighbour to say that the side of their house had fallen off. “I went outside and I was in complete shock.”
A neighbour has come along and boarded up the gable end. Mr Egan was removing rubble and bricks from the house on Thursday evening. They are staying with Ms Egan’s mother locally and do not know when they will be able to return home.
“We have a great estate and a great community and a great network who all jumped in to help us,” Mr Egan said.
Parts of east Galway remain without power a week after Storm Éowyn. One woman on the Loughrea community Facebook page posted a notice from ESB Networks stating that power would not be restored until March 3rd.
Dr Lhara Mullins said she has been without power for six days and has been told that it will be February 3rd before she and her family are connected.
Dr Mullins, a lecturer in health promotion in the University of Galway, moved to Bullaun outside Loughrea two years ago.
She has three children with autism ranging in ages from 11 to 22 and they are “visibly distressed” by being out of their routine. “It’s exceptionally difficult given the uncertainty this presents and the lack of clarity about when we are going to have it back. The house is absolutely freezing. It was -3 this morning.”
She believes the Government must learn lessons from this storm and draw up a list of vulnerable people before future extreme weather events.
Headford area councillor Andrew Reddington says the ESB and Galway County Council have done “trojan work” in restoring power and unblocking roads but the Government response has been inadequate “and I’m saying that as a Fine Gael councillor”.
He believed an emergency taskforce should have been set up as early as last Monday to liaise with community health teams to target those who need help the most.
“There are old people I know who are sleeping in their sittingrooms or going into hospitals just to get heat,” he said.
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