LONDON >> Millions of people in Ireland and northern parts of the U.K. heeded the advice of authorities to stay at home Friday in the face of hurricane-force winds that disabled power networks and brought widespread travel disruptions.

Forecasters had issued a rare “red” weather warning, meaning danger to life, across the whole island of Ireland and central and southwest Scotland.

Ireland bore the brunt of the storm first, as it was hit with wind gusts of 114 mph, the strongest since World War II, as a winter storm spiraled in from the Atlantic before hitting Scotland.

A man died after a tree fell on his car in County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, local police said.

The storm was moving fast and is expected to have cleared Scotland’s shores by late Friday.

City centers, such as Dublin in Ireland, Belfast in Northern Ireland and Glasgow in Scotland were eerily quiet, much like the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as shops stayed closed and people heeded the advice to not venture out. For those that did leave home and were caught in one of the wind gusts, it was a struggle to stay upright.

“I want to thank members of the public for largely following Police Scotland’s advice not to travel,” said Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney.

More than a million homes, farms and businesses in the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland were without power as record-breaking wind speeds swept across the island. A further 100,000 customers in Scotland were also reported to have lost power.

Schools were closed and trains, ferries and more than 1,000 flights were canceled in the Republic of Ireland and the U.K., even as far south as London Heathrow, as the system, named Storm Éowyn (pronounced Ay-oh-win) by weather authorities, roared in.

The disruption is set to last through Saturday. ScotRail, for example, said the storm caused significant damage to infrastructure and that a full assessment of the network will need to be done, which will include removal of debris.

Ireland’s weather office, Met Eireann, said the 114 mph gusts early Friday were recorded at Mace Head on the west coast, beating a record of 113 mph set in 1945. Wind speeds in Scotland were slightly lower through the day, although still historically high.