Weather leaves 93-year-old Sarah without power

A 93-YEAR-OLD Straid woman remained defiant after the weekend’s weather chaos left her without power for three days - despite her son being an engineer for Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE).
Straid woman Sarah Holmes (93) was left without power for three days during the weekend's weather chaos. INNT 13-604conStraid woman Sarah Holmes (93) was left without power for three days during the weekend's weather chaos. INNT 13-604con
Straid woman Sarah Holmes (93) was left without power for three days during the weekend's weather chaos. INNT 13-604con

Sarah Holmes was one of the many thousands of Newtownabbey householders left without power after high winds and heavy snow took their tool on the electricity network.

With a son as an engineer for NIE many would have thought Sarah would not have to wait as long to get the power restored to her home.

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“Unfortunately that’s not how it works when you’re fixing the electricity network,” said David Holmes, a transmission engineer and son to Sarah.

“We have to fix faults affecting the main backbone of the network first which means those affecting only one or two homes, like mum’s, take time.”

Since the weather caused massive devastation to many hundreds of thousands of homes across the province David has notched up over 200 miles From Ballymena to Ballyclare and Belfast dealing with various faults.

David was just one of the many hundreds of engineers scrambled over the weekend to restore power to thousands of people left without electricity.

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He added: “I try to take a picture or some video at every fault because people never believe me when I tell them how bad the conditions are. So many roads were just impassable.”

However, his mum Sarah did not allow three days without power to get to her.

She said: “I lived without electric for half my life so I think I can manage for a few days.”