![\"Waves](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0edc4601-4580-4f81-b808-c6b7cddadabe.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt was one of almost 300 instances of debris obstructing roads here that were reported.<\/p>\n
Torrential rain and gusts of up to 70mph caused havoc across the region, forcing schools and universities to shut their doors amid safety concerns.<\/p>\n
More than 300 schools closed after the Met Office issued an amber weather warning for wind from 5am on Tuesday until midnight, as well as a yellow warning for rain.<\/p>\n
By the late morning, Northern Ireland Electricity said it was working to restore power to around 10,000 homes.<\/p>\n
In total, there were 288 reports of obstructions on roads due to debris from high winds as of 4pm, officials said.<\/p>\n
Heavy rainfall also resulted in 495 calls of flooding across Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Waves in Whitehead (Luke Jervis\/Belfast Telegraph)<\/p>\n
Ballymena farmer rescues flock of sheep from flood water\n<\/p>\n
Over 350 roads were closed, while several flights out of Belfast City and Belfast International airports were suspended.<\/p>\n
High winds also brought down a tree on a woman\u2019s car in the Snowhill Road area of Lisbellaw. Crews from the NI Ambulance Service rushed her to hospital but her injuries were not serious.<\/p>\n
Sandbags were also deployed along the Newry Canal at Canal Quay amid concerns over potential flooding.<\/p>\n
Newry Business Improvement District said their \u201cteam remain out on the ground supporting with flood concern management\u201d. D\u00e1ire Hughes MP added: \u201cWe hope for a dry night and the flood risk to reduce, but sandbags are being distributed as a precaution and more have been ordered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hughes said the Scheme of Emergency Financial Assistance (SEFA) has been activated for households impacted by flooding.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents who experienced severe disruption or damage may be eligible to apply for a \u00a31,000 emergency payment through their local council,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, an animal rescue operation was under way on the outskirts of Ballymena after several sheep were stranded when a river burst its banks.<\/p>\n
Firefighters from the Specialist Rescue Team were called to assist.<\/p>\n
The Met Office\u2019s Co Down weather station in Katesbridge recorded its wettest day on record, with 100.8mm of rain in 24 hours from 9am on Monday.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s BetMcLean League Cup Semi-Final between Glentoran and Coleraine was forced to reschedule due to the adverse weather conditions.<\/p>\n
Although winds were supposed to die down overnight, a fresh yellow warning was issued for ice until 10am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins paid tribute to staff on the ground, saying: \u201cI want to thank DfI colleagues who have been out clearing debris on the road and dealing with floodwater in very challenging and unpleasant conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is at times like this that the work carried out by public servants for our communities, which often goes unseen, really comes to the fore.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the extent of disruption across the road network it will take time to clear and get all roads open as normal again. Staff are responding to incidents, but our response time is being affected by the adverse conditions and incidents will have to be prioritised accordingly. The safety of members of the public and our own staff is paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Department of Education came under fire from school principals across East Antrim for what they say was a \u201csignificant failure\u201d to provide guidance on school closures.<\/p>\n
Principals expressed anger that they had been left to \u201cshoulder the responsibility\u201d for the decision to close.<\/p>\n
Among them was Kathryn McClean, principal at Woodlawn Primary School in Carrickfergus, and also chair of the East Antrim Principals Group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Met Office is pretty explicit when it issues weather warnings and when you see the term \u2018possible threat to life\u2019, and when children are involved, our policy is to always err on the side of caution,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Education Authority and Department of Education advised us that decisions regarding school closures should be taken by individual school leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I respect the intention to allow local judgement, it is important to state formally that placing such responsibility solely on individual principals during a danger to life weather alert represents, in my view, a significant failure to provide clear, system\u2011wide direction at a time when consistency and safety should be paramount.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be in a position of having to decide to close on Tuesday morning, so we had to make the choice at 9pm on Monday night to give parents at least some chance of making arrangements for the closure.<\/p>\n
National Secretary of the school leaders union NAHT Dr Graham Gault said the lack of proper guidance had \u201conce again placed principals in an invidious position\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cmany were left making high\u2011stakes decisions at short notice, sometimes when children were already en route to school\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Department of Education spokesperson said: \u201cFollowing a series of briefings with the relevant agencies on 26 January, DE and EA were in agreement that blanket school closures were not necessary on this occasion. As adverse weather impacts can vary significantly even within short distances, school leaders are often best placed to make decisions to close individual schools if necessary to ensure the safety of pupils and staff, based on local risk assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EA issued advice to schools at 3pm ensuring school leaders could assess the risks and take timely decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was one of almost 300 instances of debris obstructing roads here that were reported. Torrential rain and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[155107,17698,1144,16,15,741],"class_list":{"0":"post-725130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-abdullah-sabri","9":"tag-mark-bain","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115969606543372643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}