Tonnes of rock armour plug quay wall gap

HUNDREDS of tonnes of rock armour have been used to plug a huge gap where flood waters breached Cork city’s quay walls.

City council engineers supervised an operation between 3am and 7am on Saturday when up to 100 trucks dumped massive boulders at the 30-foot breach in the wall at Grenville Place, near the Mercy University Hospital (MUH). Raging floodwaters smashed through the wall, buckling it in other places, before swamping MUH’s emergency department, and coming within inches of the hospital’s main power generators in the early hours of Thursday.

MUH came within minutes of being without power, which would have put critically ill patients in danger. Hospital managers considered a full evacuation, but the flood levels dropped and with help from the army, which ferried staff to work in boats and delivered crucial supplies by truck, the hospital remained open.

City officials evacuated up to 40 people from homes around Grenville Place and the Middle Parish amid concerns that some buildings, and sections of road were unstable.

“We don’t know what other damage has been done by the force of the flood,” said city manager Joe Gavin. “A superficial examination has been done, but we can’t do a full and detailed examination while the river is in spate. When this crisis is over, we will have to do a thorough assessment of the quay walls and city bridges.

“Never before has the infrastructure being impacted to the degree that it has been in the last few days.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said, in light of what has happened, authorities will need to reassess the future of the low-lying city’s flood defences in the context of climate change.