Hundreds of homes without power in fears over safety

SEVERAL hundred households were without power last night after the ESB was forced to cut off power because of safety concerns.

A spokesperson for the company said the move was necessitated by rapidly rising water levels.

Power has been cut off in some parts of Bandon, Cork city and east Galway.

ESB crews are in the area and the power will be switched back on as soon as the water levels subside.

The main route into West Cork was closed off last night after the torrential rain of recent days closed all roads into the town of Bandon.

The Red Cross, civil defence, gardaí and local charities were still leading the attempted clean-up yesterday. On Thursday night and early yesterday, people were forced to navigate the streets in rubber dinghies while others only had the protection of waders after water destroyed town centre buildings coming through windows, doors and even up through toilets. It’s estimated the cost of the damage to the town won’t be known until early next week.

Fine Gael Councillor Andrew Coleman said that nobody had entered or exited the town since around 6pm on Thursday evening when it “was shut down” by flooding.

“You couldn’t pass the bridges or any of the roads into the town. Schools are shut. Businesses are shut. It is a complete disaster; a catastrophe and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time for traders,” he said.

“We’ve been looking for a main drainage scheme for many years. This would have alleviated the flooding.”

Flooding had been a problem in Bandon in the 1980s but the subsequent dredging of the river and installation of gully traps had made a huge difference – until Wednesday.

Local doctor Anthony Calnan said the only way many small businesses would survive is if central government made special emergency funding available.

In Mallow, town engineer Keith Jones said yesterday that the town had benefited hugely from the ongoing Office of Public Works (OPW) flood defence programme. Defences were in place on the northside of the River Blackwater.

Tenders are out for construction work on the southside of the river.

“The OPW works were a big success. Demountable barriers were put up in advance of the rising waters and a flood wall is also permanently in place. This stopped flooding that we would have traditionally experienced around the Spa and Bridge St. There was a bit of flooding around the northside at Quartertown and the Killavullen Road, but it was only on the road and only one or two residences were affected. There also was a bit of flooding around Park Road as that was outside the new flood defences,” he said.

The Mayor of Fermoy, Cllr Noel McCarthy, said his hometown had suffered the worst flood in 25 years.

The main road through the town was closed shortly before 3am yesterday as the River Blackwater burst its banks. It didn’t reopen until shortly before 6pm yesterday. The worst hit areas were on the Tallow Road, the former Mart area, Mill Road, O’Neill Crowley Quay and Rathealy Road.

The town’s only hotel, the Grand Hotel, was forced to close after floods came up Ashe Quay.

Skibbereen Town Clerk Don O’Donovan said they had about 50mm of rain on Thursday and yesterday morning due to their river valley geography. Civil defence forces were on standby from 12pm on Thursday as was Baltimore Lifeboat dinghies and emergency services. A number of people living on Mill Road and at Townsend Street had to be evacuated from their homes while businesses in these areas were “severely damaged”. Council trucks spent yesterday picking up debris from homes and offices. North-west of Skibbereen town, there was 9.3m of water on Thursday night.

One Skibbereen businesswoman, Eilis Cohalan-Hodnett said that the scramble for sandbags by traders on Thursday “was like a rush for food during the famine in Ethiopia”.

She and her husband Liam, auctioneers in the town, had to use a dinghy to escape after 27 inches of water fell in their premises. They couldn’t access sandbags such was the demand around Main Street, Townsend Street and Market Street. Most businesses in Skibbereen were shut yesterday as the clean-up continued.

And in Clonakilty, huge efforts by locals helped to block off much off the river water from entering the town centre.

A huge community clean-up effort was mounted yesterday in the town.

Bantry luckily avoided much of the drama. Town and county engineer, Ruth O’Brien said much of the flooding was “localised” on the Drimoleague Road, between Caheragh and Skibbereen and between Ballylickey and Pearson Bridge.

It’s expected there will be angry scenes at next Monday’s county council meeting as councillors vent anger at the Government’s failure to fund flood relief works in recent years.