Storm Eowyn’s first victim had hit a U-turn and was trying to flee a danger area when a tree fell and killed him.
Kacper Dudek was on the phone to his father when his car was crushed by the tree, which was uprooted in last night’s record-breaking winds.
The 20-year-old was driving in convoy with a friend after being let out early from their night shifts when he had to turn his car around, after coming across a road accident, the Mirror reports.
Police and local emergency services attended the scene after the tree fell on the car at around 5.30am in Feddyglass, Raphoe, County Donegal, in the north-west of the Republic.
Mr Dudek, who was born in Poland but raised in nearby Lifford, Donegal, died at the scene.
The police force said: ‘Gardaí in Raphoe continue to investigate the fatal road traffic incident that occurred at Feddyglass, Raphoe, Donegal on Friday morning 24th January 2025 which resulted in the death of Kacper Dudek (20).
‘The body of the deceased man has been removed from the scene to the mortuary in Letterkenny University Hospital where a post mortem examination will take place in due course. The N14 remains closed and local diversions are in place.
‘Garda Forensic Collision Investigators are conducting a full examination of the scene this morning.
‘A Family Liaison Officer (FLO) has been assigned to provided support to the family of Mr Dudek (RIP). Investigations ongoing.’
Tributes on social media called Mr Dudek a ‘lovely decent young fella’ who was ‘trying to make a life for himself’.
His school, Holy Cross College, added: ‘The Holy Cross College community sends our thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of our past student, Kacper Dudek who has sadly passed away. May Kacper’s gentle soul rest in peace.’
Ireland was hit hard by Storm Eowyn yesterday, with a record-breaking wind speed of 183kmh (114mph) being measured in Mace Head, Co Galway on Friday morning, Met Eireann said.
More than one million homes, farms and businesses in the Republic and Northern Ireland were without power, with some homes and businesses expected to be cut off for a week.
ESB Networks in Ireland and NIE Networks say they expect significant further outages as Storm Eowyn continues to batter parts of the island, with 725,000 customers affected in the Republic and 283,000 in Northern Ireland.
Tomorrow, a yellow wind warning covering south-west England, English and Scottish coasts around the Irish Sea, Wales and Northern Ireland will be in place from 8am to 3pm, with 50 to 60mph gusts expected widely in the warning area.
A yellow rain warning covering southern and central England and Wales will also be in place from 8am on Sunday to 6am on Monday.
A danger to life warning has been imposed for fast flowing or deep floodwater while homes and businesses could face rising water.
Some could see as much as 80mm of rainfall over the weekend from two separate spells of heavy rain and thundery showers, while 10 to 20mm should fall quite widely and 30 to 50mm could fall over high ground.
The forecaster further predicted a possibility of power cuts throwing the country into darkness and difficult driving conditions.
Met Office meteorologist Jonathan Vautrey said: ‘Looking at Sunday, it’s set to be a fairly fine start for a lot of areas – another ridge of high pressure building in to keep things fairly settled, with some sunny spells in there.
‘The cloud, though, is going to be building as we see a low pressure system move into the South West.
‘This will be bringing heavy rain in for south-west England and Wales from sort of mid-morning onwards, and then that will spread into Northern Ireland and northern England as we head later on into the afternoon.
‘Winds will also be picking up with this feature. Certainly, it’s not going to be as strong as Storm Eowyn.
‘However, because it’s coming in from the South West, it’s going to be actually more southern areas of England that are going to see the strongest wind gusts compared to what has mostly been further towards the north.’
More than 1,100 flights were cancelled on Friday, with Dublin, Edinburgh, Heathrow and Glasgow airports the worst affected.
Travel mayhem will continue on Saturday, with trains in Scotland not expected to restart until at least 12pm tomorrow after every ScotRail service was axed yesterday.
An amber wind warning covering northern Scotland expired at 6am on Saturday, while a yellow wind warning covering the majority of Scotland will be in place until 3pm.
Those in the warning areas have been advised to secure loose items such as bins, garden furniture and trampolines outside their homes.
Yellow snow and ice warnings are in place in Northern Ireland until 10am on Saturday and in Scotland until 11am, with injuries from slips and falls on icy surfaces possible.
Up to 10cm of snow could develop on high ground in Scotland throughout the morning.
A yellow ice warning covering parts of south-west England, the Midlands and southern and mid-Wales will be in place from 3am to 10am.
‘From daytime tomorrow onwards, the start of Saturday is quite a nice one for more central and southern areas of the UK,’ Mr Vautrey said.
‘There’s going to be a lot of sunshine around, relatively calm winds as a transient ridge of high pressure builds its way in, and so for a lot of people away from those still ongoing winds across northern Scotland, Saturday will generally be quite a reasonable day.’
ScotRail said all services across Scotland would remain suspended until midday on Saturday at the earliest, insisting it ‘would not be safe to operate passenger services due to forecast weather conditions’.
The railway operator later added that it will not know the full extent of the damage to its tracks and overhead lines until Network Rail carries out a full assessment, a process ScotRail says will ‘take quite a bit of time’.
Workers are expected to start clearing fallen trees and other debris that has landed on the tracks.
A gust of 100mph was recorded at Drumalbin in South Lanarkshire in Scotland on Friday, the Met Office said, while a record-breaking wind speed of 183kmh (114mph) was measured in Mace Head, Co Galway in Ireland, Met Eireann said.
A 96mph wind was measured at Brizlee Wood in Northumberland, while it was 93mph at Aberdaron in Gwynedd, Wales, and 92mph at Killowen in County Down, Northern Ireland.
Bit it was so severe that it knocked some weather stations in western Ireland offline, meaning the full extent of powerful winds on Friday is not yet known.
A man was killed after a tree fell on his car, in the north-west of the Republic, Gardai said.
NIE Networks said around 214,000 homes and businesses remained without power in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Government said 106,000 properties were without power in Scotland late on Friday evening.
Some 20 per cent of all flights scheduled to or from UK or Irish airports were cancelled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium which said a total of 1,070 had been cancelled – with Dublin, Edinburgh, Heathrow and Glasgow worst affected.
Hundreds of passengers also spent hours on flights which returned to their points of departure after being unable to land at their planned destinations.
Ryanair flight RK596 from London Stansted to Edinburgh reached the Scottish capital’s airport but could not touch down safely.
After circling over the Borders it returned to Stansted, landing two hours and 44 minutes after taking off. Online systems had initially showed the flight was diverting to Cologne, Germany.
Dramatic videos showed planes struggling to land and wheelie bins blown across streets in the strong winds.
Hundreds of schools closed in Scotland, Wales and northern England during the storm – while 715,000 homes, farms and businesses were without power across the Republic of Ireland, and a further 240,000 homes and business in Northern Ireland suffered cuts.
The Isle of Man’s Department of Infrastructure declared a major incident because of the number of fallen trees and their impact on arterial roads and emergency services.
The storm name Eowyn – pronounced ‘A-yo-win’ – is also found in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, where it is the name of a noblewoman from the kingdom of Rohan.