By Chris Ashmore

DONEGAL has already had more red weather alerts this year than the combined total for 2022, 2023, and 2024, latest figures show.

A total of 60 weather warnings were issued by Met Éireann for Donegal between January 1 and October 9.

Of these, three were red, 12 were orange and 45 were yellow.

In 2024, the county had 92 weather warnings (one red, 12 orange and 79 yellow) while in 2023 the total was 103, comprising no red, 10 orange and 93 yellow.

The figures for 2022 were no red, ten orange and 87 yellow.

Following representations from Cllr Tómas Sean Devine about the possibility of using community centres during periods of extreme weather, Gary Martin, Donegal County Council’s Director of Economic Development, Emergency and Information Systems, has outlined the currency official policy.

In a written reply, he stated: “Past experience of orange wind and storm/rain incidents would not suggest a necessity to either stand up community support centres or indeed other forms of additional intervention beyond the normal pre-planning and during/post incident response planning from various Council services.”

He continued: “This has worked well in the past and it is not intended to change from that approach at this time. In future, where a red wind warning is forecast, the Council will notify in advance of contingency plans for any issue around temporary housing needs.

“At a practical level, there is no way of knowing in advance of an incident, which areas will be impacted by an electricity outage for an extended period. This alone makes it impractical to stand up community support centres across the county in advance of an incident. It is of much better value to have such facilities targeted at areas of need, with necessary support services, where they will be required for extended periods, e.g., where electricity may be off for a period beyond 48 hours.”

Red weather wind warnings come into place when it is forecast to have winds in excess of 130km per hour.