Nearly 40 years on, nightmare returns to estate

In spring 1973, a brand new housing estate in Riverstown, Glanmire, was devastated by flooding.

For a long time, residents lobbied for the construction of a flood barrier.

And in the early 1990s, ESB constructed a defence wall along the riverbank bordering the estate on the east.

But yesterday the barrier failed them. Dirty brown water quickly rose above the wall and gushed into the Meadowbrook estate.

One of the first houses hit was Pauline Kennedy’s.

It burst around her back wall ripping out the blocks of her neighbour’s garage and leaving the contents of his shelves strewn along her garden. The water thrashed through the shed and drove a fridge and freezer so hard they wedged in the door.

“It came very fast,” she said, “it washed in the back door and came out the front.”

She had woken earlier because the rain was as heavy as she had ever heard. She called her son Niall at 5:41am and by that stage the water was washing through the upper part of the estate.

Across the road, Abdullah Khalid, had got up to move his car when water reached the halfway point on his tyres. “When I opened the door it was like a river.”

Others could not get their cars through the rising waters on time.

By 10.30am, he was able to point to a side wall along a green area near the riverbank which six hours before was the scene of a deep torrent worse than the normal river.

His friend Cillian Barry rushed back from Youghal by 6.30 when high tide was peaking. The high water mark then started to dip below the barrier wall and it eased pressure on the upper part of Meadowbrook.

It also benefited the SuperValu on the opposite side of the river bank. Inside it the basement car park was filled to the brim and this remained long after other parts dried out.

“There is now an Olympic sized swimming pool in Glanmire. The basement has four feet of water and it is receding slowly. We had attenuation tanks and everything but the pressure from the flash flood was too great,” said Liam Ryan of the SuperValu store at 4pm yesterday.

Due to a clean-up that started at 6am, he was able to open for business.

Surrounding shops were submerged in floods of water and muck that had streamed down from Richmond, ripping up sections of the road as it did.

The torrent tore down the brick wall separating Barry Bros Funeral Home from nearby shops.

These were still affected later in the morning, as was the lower part of Meadowbrook, where drains could not cope with the gushing water.

Neighbours had been out and awake since 4.45am, when those that were warned moved their cars and honked their horns loudly to try wake anybody who was sleeping.

Four doors down from Mr Khalid, Barry Looney had to get his wife and daughter out of the house with a ladder. By midday, the residual water marks showed the levels had reached halfway up a living-room couch.

Mr Looney moved into the estate after it was built in 1973 and kept the newspaper cuttings from the flooding that devastated Meadowbrook that spring.

However, he said the residents successfully lobbied for the barrier wall and two relief drains that were supposed to protect the houses in the case of an emergency.

The system worked well until yesterday morning.

“It all came too quick and it did too much damage before people realised.”

Within a few feet of his house the section of the estate was still cut off six hours after the water level began dropping.

The fire brigade and civil defence used a RIB to evacuate those who wanted to leave.

Initially, concern was that the returning tide after 1pm would repeat the trauma.

But, after a foul drain was opened it cleared as the sewerage system took the excess.

As this worked, and appeared to have a speedy effect, by 10.30am, up to a dozen householders opted to remain in their upstairs rooms until the levels receded fully.

As the water began to leave diggers moved in to ship out the mud and dirt from the roads.

At the shopping centre, the restaurant, hairdressers and cafes lifted their furniture outside to dry.

In Meadowbrook, residents began calling insurance companies and returning to the cars that did not escape the river.

Meanwhile, in the community centre, food was prepared to help those whose lives and homes had been left in a sodden heap.