PICTURES | Longford emergency hubs provide heat, water and wi-fi to Storm Éowyn stricken families

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It has been over a week since Storm Éowyn rolled into Longford leaving a path of destruction in her wake. READ MORE BELOW PHOTO

The storm left almost everyone in the county without power, water and phone signal, the worst cases saw people's homes destroyed by fallen trees and the force of the winds.

One area that was hit particularly hard was Granard town and its surrounding areas.

Many of the schools in the area were still closed including one of their secondary schools, Cnoc Mhuire.

However, amidst the chaos of the last few days Lus na Gréine, Granard’s Family Resource Centre managed to provide struggling locals with an oasis of heating, electricity, hot food and internet.

Also read: Surge of anger and stress as Longford residents hit by prolonged power outages feel left behind

Eileen Finan runs the family resource centre and has been since it first opened. Not only has she been providing people with respite from the effects of Storm Éowyn, but she and her colleagues have been heading out into the community to help those in need.

“What we’ve been doing over the last couple of days is open up the place and let people charge their phones once the storm died down.

“We made cups of tea for people and that kind of thing,” explained Eileen.

Though Lus na Gréine was also without water they still managed by buying in a lot of the water and used collected rainwater to flush the toilets.

Also read: Longford sees massive community response in the aftermath of savage Storm Éowyn

Still, they continued providing for the community.

“We’ve made soup, we’ve made sandwiches for people, little salads, brown bread, and scones.

“We have fed anyone that came into us, we enabled people to 'work from home' as we’ve had lots of internet connection.”

This was a great relief to many people working from home as they would have otherwise had to travel to Dublin.

Also read: Over 8,000 homes and businesses in Longford reconnected by eir following Storm Éowyn

Eamon O’Callaghan who lives just outside of Granard, has been working from Lus na Gréine for the past few days.

“With working from home I require good broadband, luckily the centre opened as soon as they got power back,” said Eamon.

“The centre’s been amazing, and just seeing them all week in action. There have been so many people in and out charging devices, getting advice or even people checking PowerCheck to see when their electricity would come back.

While Eamon was without power and water he was grateful it wasn’t worse.

“We’re fortunate in that way because there are people around us that had significant damage to their house.

“But I mean Ber, Eileen the entire team have been amazing.”

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The two women have been going out to people's homes as well and providing them with some much-needed supplies.

“Ber had a call from a 90-year-old woman who needed blankets so we put a call out on Facebook and people left them into us,” she recalled.

Ber the Family support and Community Development worker said that young people had a particularly tough time during this storm.

“I think young people struggled in particular because they didn’t have internet. They were lost without their internet because they would connect with their friends or use it for their homework,” she explained.

However, Lus na Gréine also made sure that students sitting exams would not miss out on their school work.

They allowed the sixth-year students of Cnoc Mhuire and their teachers to use the facility for a few days while they waited for the school to get its power back.

Sixth years weren’t the only students using the facility to get back to their studies. Liam Farrell, a fifth year had been dutifully sat in the centre to keep up with his school work.

Also read: ‘Lessons to learn’ for Government, state agencies and ESB over storm response

“I live in the remote countryside so I’d say we’re at the bottom of the priority list to get it back.

“I’m fifth year, it’s not as important as the Leaving Cert but I’d still like to get a bit done because the February exams are coming up in two weeks.”

Marisa Kiernan was also taking refuge in Lus na Gréine.

“I forgot how much I go for the internet, just like social media even,” she said, “It’s so cold because there’s no power I heard on the radio on the way to Granard that the temperature’s going to be even lower tonight.”

“I can’t call anyone because I no longer have a mobile network. The only thing I have now is when I come in here I get the guest internet and text my friends, how are you? how’s the family? are you all okay?

“I’ve only gotten two responses because everyone is disconnected.”

Motea Othman was also making use of the facilities available at Lus na Gréine.

He had come in every day to charge his phone to Facetime his family.

“I have no power and no water, thank you to Lus na Gréine who are helping all families.”