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A car drives through sea foam whipped up by the wind of Hurricane Ophelia at Trearddur Bay on October 16, 2017 in Holyhead, Wales. Hurricane Ophelia comes exactly 30 years after the Great Storm of 1987. Two people have been killed as the remnants of the storm hit the United Kingdom and Ireland. Christopher Furlong/GETTY

Former Hurricane Ophelia struck Ireland Monday morning, killing three people. The one-time hurricane, which slowed down to a post-tropical cyclone as it hit Ireland, left hundreds of thousands of people without power.

The United Kingdom and Ireland aren’t accustomed to these types for storms, according to reports. Ireland’s weather service, Met Eireann, issued its first red alert for severe weather throughout the country. Officials warned Sunday evening of “violent and destructive gusts” and of “potential loss of life.”

The wind ripped roofs off houses, knocked over trees and caused flooding along the coast. Ireland has not seen a storm as powerful since Hurricane Debbie in 1961, according to Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

“This is a national red alert,” said Varadkar in a Monday press conference. “It applies to all cities, all counties and all areas.”

The wind speed of Ophelia reached 109 miles per hour on Ireland’s southern tip, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center downgraded the storm Monday. Over the weekend it was a Category 3.

Much of Ireland was shut down Monday. The storm made landfall around 7 a.m. in the southwestern counties of Cork and Kerry.

Around 385,000 people in Ireland — around 17 percent of its population — are without power, according to the New York Times Monday.

The was headed toward Britain late Monday and into Tuesday, but the country has already felt its effects. London skies were red Monday, as Ophelia carried sand from the Sahara and whipped it over the city.

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