Northern Ireland’s leaders urged public to stay at home during severe weather
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Northern Ireland’s leaders have urged the public to stay at home ahead of expected severe weather in the region across Friday. All schools in Northern Ireland have been advised to close on Friday amid a top-level red warning for wind issued for Storm Eowyn.
The Met Office has issued a red alert, which covers all of Northern Ireland from 7am on Friday until 2pm, and is warning of “very dangerous conditions” and “widespread disruption”. Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly spoke to media at Parliament Buildings following a meeting of the Stormont Executive on Thursday morning.
They were due to meet with police and described the situation as “evolving”. Ms O’Neill said: “It’s important to emphasise that a red warning is very serious, it’s only used whenever there is a genuine threat to life and potential damage to property and the public should expect significant disruption to travel and also potential power outages because of the severity of conditions.
“We want to assure everybody that we’re working across government with all our partner agencies, councils, the PSNI, emergency services and other agencies to deal with any impacts and also in terms of preparedness. “We also want the public to know that they can expect to receive an emergency alert on their phones later on this afternoon.
“This is an evolving situation, there are meetings happening as we speak, and we’ll be coming back this afternoon with further updates, but just to say to everybody, we want people to stay safe, we want people to look out for those that are vulnerable, take time to check in on family and friends.
