‘My house is done up, but am I going to be out again this Christmas?’

PEOPLE living in one of the city’s worst affected flood zones are lying awake at night in fear that their homes will flood again.

Sean O’Connell, the chairman of the Middle Parish Community Association, said several residents, especially the elderly, who live in local authority homes in the Grattan Street area, refused to sleep during the city’s recent high tide flood alert.

“These people were out of their homes for up to three months after last November’s flood,” he said while standing in the city centre community hall, which was also badly damaged.

“Repairs are still being carried out in some homes because householders were waiting so long for insurance, and some had no insurance at all, and had to fund the repairs themselves. Some people got some funds from the HSE and St Vincent de Paul but it didn’t cover everything. They are just finishing the houses now and they’re ready for Christmas. But the fear is there – my house is done up, all painted, new tiles, new carpet, but am I going to be out again this Christmas? We have no guarantees. Every time it rains, or there is a bad storm, people get very, very worried.”

He said a lot of his elderly neighbours stayed up all night during the high tide alert.

“And all they were doing was looking out their window, opening their doors, checking was there another flood in the area,” he said.

As a community leader, Mr O’Connell gets a call from City Hall when such alerts are issued.

During the latest alert, Mr O’Connell was told the Middle Parish area should escape flooding.

“But that is only a ‘we should be OK’. That’s not a guarantee,” he said.

“There is still a lot of worry here. People are wondering when the quay wall will be done. If they started repairing the quay walls and looking after the residents in Grattan Street, it might help.”

Mr O’Connell said his association is on good terms with City Hall and has approached city officials to install door dams in at-risk ground floor properties.

The devices would be more suitable for elderly residents, who can’t manage heavy sandbags, and it would be more cost-effective in the long term, he said.

And he invited Environment Minister John Gormley to visit.

“It was a man-made disaster, and the people of Cork city that were affected by the flooding should have been alerted, more informed and protected,” he said.

“We were left in our own homes to fend for ourselves. He should come down to visit us. You can’t see anything when you’re above in Dublin. I would invite him down to meet the residents, see what damage was done, and discuss everything with them.”

Noel Tobin, who has been living at Patrick Hanley Buildings in the Middle Parish since 2001, lost everything in the flood and was out of his home for five weeks.

He sits in his neighbour Eileen O’Regan’s home, working on the Middle Parish Resident’s Association’s efforts to help people recover.

They are angry at the Environment Minister, the ESB and city council.

Ms O’Regan cited the Oireachtas Committee’s recommendation that a public inquiry be held.

“In this Government, nobody is responsible for anything,” she said.

“We want a public inquiry. We want to know who’s responsible – well we know who’s responsible but we want it official. Minister Gormley is supposed to be the minister and he says he’s not responsible. Who is responsible? If the Oireachtas committee meets, and they make a recommendation, and nobody takes any notice of them, what good are they? Why are we paying them, why can’t they push for it?”

While Mr Tobin’s home was being repaired by the council, he was relocated to a suburban hotel, but was anxious to get home.

“I just had to get on with it. I pushed and pushed to get back into my home and I did it within five weeks,” he said. “Now, I had to sleep on a mattress for a few weeks and it took me right up until the summer to get fully sorted.

“The city council said if you want a kitchen, we’ll rip out the old one for you, and we’ll give you a metre of work-top and a sink – and that’s it,” he said.

“Three thousand euro I paid for my kitchen. I couldn’t get the insurance company to pay up. Cork City Council didn’t pay up. So who’s got to pay? I’ve got to pay. And at the end of the day, all I wanted was my home back.”

His insurance premium has now doubled, and he has no flood cover.

Ms O’Regan said builders repairing private homes damaged by the flood stripped back walls before completely re-plastering them.

Mr Tobin said the walls in his home were simply painted over three days after the flood.

Ms O’Regan said that during the last flood alert: “The City Hall website said high tide would be 5.30am, and I was up at 5.30am and I have a friend on the Western Road, and I texted her at 6.25am to say all was well, there was no water here, and she was wide awake as well, waiting for the flood. Even though we know it wasn’t the tide that caused the flood last year, we’re still worried, whenever there is heavy rain or a storm.”

Mr Tobin said he feels his community has been “scape- goated and victimised” because of a man-made flood.

“We are all coming to a point now we are getting totally sick of people not carrying the can.”

Eric Sorensen was saved at his Mardyke home by his dog J, who woke him up before the water rose too high for him to escape.

“During the last alert, I woke at 5am and looked at the floor half expecting the flood to happen again. It has not left the brain,” he said.

He was out of his home for seven months and had to dip into his life savings to fund about 15% of the repairs, because of a shortfall in the insurance settlement.

“I have been living on the Mardyke for 35 years and it never flooded before. It wasn’t a natural flood. From a natural flood point of view, I’m not worried about the future. But if we have someone in the ESB who makes a decision to let loads of water go from the dam again, a huge flood could happen again.”

The solicitor advising Cork city’s flood victims calls for the establishment of a national dam authority to police the ESB. Plus, how the OPW and ESB have responded over the last year and why the people of one flood-stricken town have set up their own early-warning system.