‘This was the worst storm the Hodson Bay Hotel has experienced’

The damaging impact of Storm Éowyn was certainly felt at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone, which had its power and water supplies affected over the weekend and also experienced a complete cutoff of road access to and from the hotel for a time on Friday due to a fallen tree.

The hotel was forced to rely on generator power and a backup tank of water for part of the weekend, and it had to close its leisure centre and a section of its building up to and including Monday in order to allow for repair works.

"To be straight up, it was the worst storm that our hotel has experienced," said Tim Hayes, Managing Director of the Hodson Bay Hotel.

"It was the worst storm that our sister hotel, the Galway Bay Hotel, experienced as well, because they had a lot of damage to the front of the building - conservatories, roof tiles and things like that."

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent on Monday morning, Mr Hayes explained that a large tree at Athlone Golf Club had fallen onto the Hodson Bay road in the early hours of Friday morning.

This meant people were unable to get to or from the hotel by road until the tree was cleared at around 3pm on Friday.

The impact of the fallen tree also damaged water mains along the road, which cut off water supply to the hotel for a time.

"We had people trapped inside in the hotel who couldn't leave because of the massive tree across the road, and there were people on the other side of the tree who were trying to get down to the hotel," said Mr Hayes.

"We lost water for a while, and we are still suffering from that because when you eventually get all your water back, and you turn on your pumps, the pressure of pumping water around the place again causes damage."

He said that the hotel's leisure centre and pool remained closed on Monday and it was hoped that they would reopen yesterday (Tuesday).

Generator power was in use at the hotel due to the storm-induced electricity outage which affected many locals in the Kiltoom area.

Electricity eventually returned there late on Saturday night - and then went again - before coming back on Sunday afternoon.

There was also some structural damage to the hotel.

"We lost tiles on the roof, and have damage to different parts of the exterior of the building," said Mr Hayes.

"We have damage to an outdoor barbecue area - one of the trees came down through the canvas roof of that area. A tree came down as well in the area where we get all of our deliveries, and we haven't gotten to that one yet but it's being cleared away today (Monday)."

At the time of writing the nearby Yew Point amenity area, which is owned by the Hodson Bay Group, had not yet been assessed for damage.

"In the last storm, Storm Darragh, we lost one or two big trees at Yew Point that were 200 to 300 years old," he said.

"We haven't assessed Yew Point after this storm yet - we didn't want to go down there until it was safe to do so - but we're getting some people down there shortly to assess it."

Mr Hayes said that on Friday at his own home in county Roscommon he was blocked in by fallen trees, and was left without phone reception.

"I had to try to drive to an area where I had a phone signal, in order to find out what was going on in the hotel," he said.

"I eventually had to crank up my own chainsaw, and cut my way out, so I could get in to work."