Two men killed by falling trees during Storm Éowyn

Yahoo

26-01-2025

Two people were killed by falling trees during the record-breaking gusts of Storm Éowyn, which also damaged property and led to widespread power cuts across the UK and Ireland.
The deaths were confirmed as the Met Office issued more wind and rain weather warnings, which are in place until Tuesday.
On Sunday, Police Scotland said a 19-year-old was killed when his car was struck by a tree in East Ayrshire on Friday morning. He was treated in hospital in Glasgow but died the following day.
The incident happened while an amber warning was in place, three hours before it became a rare red warning.
The Scottish first minister, John Swinney, offered his condolences in a statement on X: 'This is tragic and heartbreaking news. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of the man who has died.'
A man who was killed in Ireland was named as 20-year-old Kacper Dudek. Dudek, who was born in Poland but brought up in Lifford, County Donegal, had been travelling home from work early on Friday when a tree struck his car. He reportedly had been carrying out a U-turn after coming across a road accident when Storm Éowyn uprooted a tree that crushed his car.
Éowyn was one of the strongest storms in a generation, with record-breaking wind speeds that brought widespread travel problems, power cuts and significant damage to infrastructure.
At its height, the storm left more than 1 million people without power as hurricane-strength gusts battered Ireland and the UK. The strongest gust, of 114mph (183km/h), was recorded in Mace Head, County Galway, while a gust of 100mph was recorded at Drumalbin in South Lanarkshire.
While the authorities attempted to clean up after Éowyn, the Met Office issued new warnings for wind and rain across the UK as Storm Herminia neared Spain.
A gust of 82mph was recorded on Sunday morning in Predannack, south Cornwall, with a warning of more disruption until early on Tuesday.
More than 400,000 properties across the UK and Ireland were still without power as a result of Éowyn. In Northern Ireland about 101,000 households and businesses were without power, while the figure in Scotland was 20,000.
The Republic of Ireland's electricity supplier said about 300,000 properties had no power and that it could take until Friday to restore it to everyone.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh said the storm had caused 'severe damage' to its gardens: 'At Edinburgh, 15 trees have been lost – either uprooted or damaged beyond recovery. This includes the garden's tallest tree, the 29-metre Cedrus deodara, planted in 1859.'
The wind speeds were the highest Ireland had experienced in about 80 years and also caused a wind turbine in County Galway to snap in two.
At the storm's peak, about 30% of properties in Northern Ireland had lost power, and on Sunday morning, NIE Networks said approximately 101,000 customers remained without electricity.
Derek Hynes, the managing director of the energy transmission company, said it estimated it would take 10 days to restore power to everyone. 'We are still visiting locations where damage has been caused and are working on the faults that will get power back to the highest possible numbers of homes and businesses,' he said.
On Sunday, six separate Met Office yellow weather warnings were in place for wind and rain, covering southern England, the Midlands, Wales, parts of northern England, south-west Scotland and all of Northern Ireland.
Four yellow warnings for wind and rain on Monday are in place across Wales and large parts of England, and a wind warning is in place for southern England and parts of Wales on Tuesday.
The warnings have been prompted by Storm Herminia, named by meteorological authorities in Spain, where it is expected to hit hardest. Forecasters said it would bring winds speeds of 50-60mph quite widely in the UK and up to 80mph near coasts in some places.
The Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said: 'It's going to be wet and windy over the next few days in southern parts of the UK in particular. But from Tuesday onwards, I'm expecting it generally to stay fairly changeable, [with] some showers at times and quite windy, but not as disruptive as it has been. I think, overall, probably warnings are less likely from Tuesday onwards.'