Northern Ireland is expected to be battered by the strongest winds since Boxing Day 1998 as Storm Éowyn moves across Northern Ireland, the police have warned. Both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are under red weather warnings for wind for the first time ever.

The storm had knocked out power to more than half a million utility customers by early Friday as it moved across Ireland.

Ireland has been hit with record wind gusts of 114 miles (183 kilometers) an hour as a winter storm batters the country and northern parts of the U.K. Schools have been closed, trains halted and hundreds of flights canceled in the Republic of Ireland,

Millions of people in Ireland and northern parts of the U.K. have heeded the advice of authorities to stay at home