ESB issues safety reminder after local power outage yesterday

A power outage which affected thousands of local ESB customers including many in the county, happened after an overhead line was damaged.

Yesterday afternoon, 2,598 ESB customers in the west side of Athlone, including in Baylough and Monksland-Bellanamullia, lost power shortly before 4.15 pm for just over an hour. The ESB apologised for the outage.

“The outage occurred following a third-party coming into contact with our infrastructure, damaging an overhead line,” an ESB spokesperson told the Herald today. “ESB Networks crews mobilised immediately to make the area safe, assess the damage, and carry out the necessary repair work.

“While thankfully no injury occurred, this serves as a reminder to all those working near electricity lines to exercise extreme caution while operating machinery, with the minimum safe distance of three metres from an overhead line.”