Progress on flood defences should be one positive Cork businesses can take from 2020
Norrie Eams dealing with the flooding at O’Brien.’s sandwich bar on Winthrop Street, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan
Businesses in Cork are once again mopping floors and throwing out damaged stock as they count the costs of yet another flood event.
For many of the traders on Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street, some of whom have operated there for decades, yesterday was not the first time they have been impacted in such a way.
Unfortunately, the pictures, stories and headlines we carry in today’s bear a striking, and depressing, similarity to the same stories we have printed over the past century.
Oliver Plunkett Street, at the very core of Cork’s retail centre, bears the brunt of Cork Harbour’s regular tidal surges.
At the moment the city’s South Mall acts as the flood barrier for the area.
Once the tide rises above the crest at the centre of the street, the water flows directly down the many lanes connecting the Mall to Oliver Plunkett Street where the significant damage is caused.
It repeated the same pattern we saw in 2014 and numerous times before that.
Improved weather forecasting and tidal information has allowed City Hall provide more accurate information and give businesses time to move stock and install barriers. However, as could be seen yesterday, the city needs a way to keep the floodwaters back.
Plans are in place for the Morrison's Island Public Realm And Flood Defence Project that would prevent the regular flooding but are currently on hold pending a legal challenge by those who argue that a tidal barrier in Cork Harbour would instead be the preferred solution.
However, businesses in Cork city don’t have the luxury of time to wait for these matters to be resolved in the courts.
The OPW accepts that a tidal barrier for Cork Harbour may very well be needed in the future. But such a development, likely the largest piece of engineering infrastructure in the state, will take decades to plan and construct.
The Morrison’s Island Flood Defence Project will defend the city centre in the short and medium-term. It is a project that must be progressed.
The timing of yesterday’s event adds further pressure to the business community. Almost all traders were 48 hours away from having to close their doors for at least six weeks due to Level 5 lockdowns to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
Like the previous lockdown earlier this year, there is a real chance that some businesses may not open again.
Businesses are eager to say goodbye to 2020 but progress on localised flood defences would provide some confidence heading into an uncertain 2021.
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