Around 16,000 homes and businesses are without power this morning as the cleanup from Storm Ashely gets underway.

The storm brought power outages, flight cancellations and some flooding around the country.

This morning, the ESB said most outages were in Galway, Mayo and Kerry – particularly in the Dingle area.

North Dublin has also been impacted and there are pockets of outages in other parts of the country.

ESB crews are currently mobilising to continue restoration works.

Irish Ferries and Stena Line passing by Poolbeg Lighthouse at high tide. #StormAshley pic.twitter.com/dW3XrK1rld

— Sryan Bruen (@SnowbieWx) October 20, 2024

At the peak of the storm, over 50,000 customers were without power.

ESB spokesperson Paul Tapley told Newstalk that people heading out this morning should take care.

“As people go about their business today they are going to come across fallen trees and damaged networks so we strongly urge that people treat these as live and call our emergency number at 1800 372 372,” he said.

“If you are facing an outage and want to know when your power will be restored, Powercheck.ie will give them that information.”

Galway

Galway was one of seven counties under a Status Orange wind warning until 8pm last night.

Gusts had reached highs of around 130 km/h early in the evening, but officials were worried about high tide and designated 6.30pm to 8.30pm as the potential risk zone.

Roads were already closed around Galway City Docks but the winds began to ease off as high tide approached.

There was some flooding along the promenade in Salthill, but not as bad as authorities had feared it might have been.

Cork

In Cork there were fallen trees on roadways overnight; however, the majority have since been cleared.

Cork City Council Director of Operations David Joyce said there is more to do this morning.

Storm Ashley has hit Salthill during high tide this evening. This is the Atlantic at its wildest. pic.twitter.com/al2vkOSkdM

— Paul O’Brien (@PGaillimh) October 20, 2024

“We have made the road safe,” he said. “We’ve removed the debris and the trees from the road; however, it remains at the side of the road.

“What we’ll be doing today now is going out and clearing away that debris.

“So we’ve made the roads safe; we’ve made sure they were open this morning for people but what we’ll be doing today now is going out and actually removing that debris.”

Air travel

Air travel was also disrupted with Dublin Airport forced to cancel 60 flights due to the storm.

At Belfast City Airport passengers were left stuck on airplanes after landing as it was too windy to get the aircraft steps out.

53,000 homes currently without power across the country due to #StormAshley. ESB warning of fallen wires and trees

This was Salthill in Co Galway at around 4pm. Concerns over high tide which is expected just before 8pm pic.twitter.com/k4Dhl5mfLs

— Andrew Lowth (@AndrewLowth1) October 20, 2024

Laura's plane from London was on the runway for over two hours before she could get off.

“We were starting to get out bags out of the overhead lockers and the pilot comes on to say that we weren’t able to get off because it was too dangerous with the winds which were about 50 mph so they couldn’t bring the steps out,” she said.

“So that initially a 20-minute to 30-minute window but then it just went on and on and the winds picked up, you could really hear the wind outside when you were on the plane.”

Trees and power lines were downed across the country, with a significant cleanup operation getting underway this morning.

With reporting from Andrew Lowth in County Galway.