Fingal County CouncilStorm Emma – Situation Update (11:30)

Fingal County Council’s Crisis Management Team had a Conference Call at 10.30am this morning. Updates were given in relation to situations at local, regional and national level. While Met Eireann’s Red Status Warning remains in place until 6pm the National Emergency Coordination Group has advised that as the blizzard has passed people can now venture outdoors but should only drive in emergency situations. Coastal routes are hazardous due to dangerous winds and high tides. Fingal County Council’s Crews were mobilised this morning and commenced ploughing and salting operations at 9.30am on roads designated as Primary Routes 1 and Primary Routes 2. This operation is likely to take at least three hours, possibly more, and the trucks will be refilled and sent out again once their run is completed. Our focus at this stage is to work through today on getting these priority routes open and safe for use by ordinary traffic. We will then revert to scheduled runs this evening with salting and ploughing taking place at 7pm and 4am. Plans are in place for other crews to move into designated areas across the county to start gritting and clearing pedestrian areas in towns and villagers. The situation in Fingal is that inland areas fared worse than coastal areas with large accumulations of snow reported in the west of the county in areas like St Margaret’s, Blanchardstown, Naul, Garristown, Oldtown and Ballyboughal. A crew was called out this morning to assist an ambulance which was stuck near Lusk. The Council’s public offices, libraries and graveyards will remain closed today and tomorrow. All public parks and recycling centres remain closed until further notice. Any changes to these arrangements will be posted on our social media accounts and our media bulletins. The Council continues to provide essential emergency services primarily through staff in our Operations, Water Services, Housing and Corporate Affairs Departments. Members of the public can submit reports of issues caused by snowfall and low temperatures to www.fixyourstreet.ie.  Issues can also be phoned to 01 8731415. These reports will be logged and assessed. Reports of people sleeping rough should be phoned to 1800 707 707 or online at http://www.homelessdublin.ie/report-rough-sleeper#1 Information is being continually posted on the Fingal Alerts app as well as our Twitter and Facebook accounts. The Crisis Management Team are scheduled to have another conference call at 8pm this evening.