Energy Restored; KTL take on Storm Ellen

Miroslav Varagic, Telemids Co-Ordinator working in a back garden in Limerick city that backed on to the Shannon. When the repairs began the Shannon was 30meters away, - just two hours later at high tide it was a severe and dense flood.

KTL braced extreme weather conditions in a bid to resolve electricity outages across Tipperary and Limerick caused by Storm Ellen on 20th August.

On Wednesday 19th August, KTL were informed that an outage scheduled for that Thursday would be cancelled due to the imminent arrival of Storm Ellen.

All signs indicated a trip to the south-west of the country with Cork forecasted to be at the epicentre of the storm. When Thursday morning arrived however, the ESB faults app showed an entirely different story.

“There was massive carnage right on our very own doorstep from Roscrea, Nenagh to Ballinderry – a 35Km radius” said Gary McDonnell LV/MV Delivery Manager.

“We touched base that morning with ESB headquarters who were overwhelmed with the damage caused. We worked together to put a structure in place and all staff took great pride in getting people’s power restored,” said McDonnell.

The first job, received by Ivan Panic and Stephen Carroll, saw the restoration of power to Ashlawn House Nursing Home in Nenagh, where some trees had taken out a main line.

The works carried out by KTL were equal parts challenging and unique, including a burning transformer. No matter the conditions however, they faced the situation with absolute professionalism.

“Many hours were put into the storm response over the weekend, especially the first night where crews worked up to 01:45am to get vital customers up and running. Some days the lads were soaked but they kept going.” said Brendon Bekker, Project Manager.

Bekker continued, “ESB, as they always are, were extremely amiable throughout the response and both parties worked effectively to repair the damage.”

Jobs undertaken in Limerick were mostly MV (Medium Voltage) to begin with – timber being the root cause of most of the damage. Works then progressed to LV (Low Voltage). “When we started, the Shannon was 30 meters away from us. Two hours later we were in the Shannon” said David Hughes, Project Manager.

KTL would like to express enormous thanks to all staff for their rigour and courageous efforts in responding to faults and outages over the weekend of Storm Ellen.

More information on KTL available here: KTL

SEO Tags: ESB, KTL, Power Outages, Storm Ellen