A week before Kerry storm damage costs estimated

It will be at least a week before Kerry County Council has carried out full assessment of the damage, as well as an estimate of the cost of repairs and long-term work required to protect the county’s vulnerable coastline.

A key element of work to be carried out will be the protection of people’s houses from flooding. The homes of some families in the Cromane, Cashen and Ballylongford areas were flooded for the first time in living memory.

County manager Tom Curran has stated the council will not be able to fund repair work from its own resources and has called for 100% Government funding to deal with coastal erosion.

Council spokesman Padraig Corkery yesterday said the clearing-up job will reveal the extent of the damage and enable engineers make a full assessment of the cost before a submission is made for Government funding.

“We hope to have a good idea in the next week, or two, sooner rather than later,” he said.

Dessie O’Shea, of the Wavecrest Caravan Park, Caherdaniel, yesterday told of seeing mobile homes and caravans being tossed around by waves crashing into the property from mountainous seas.

“The waves lifted mobile homes up in the air and dropped them down again. Years of work were torn to bits in about two hours.

“What happened here is the worst that some people who are 80 years of age can remember. We never saw anything like it.”

Three caravans and a mobile home were destroyed.

In Rossbeigh Beach, which suffered a major exacerbation of already grave erosion problems, the wooden skeleton of the cargo boat, Sunbeam, which ran aground there more than 100 years ago, was lifted out of the sand and thrown up on the dunes.

Further up the coast in the seaside resort of Ballybunion, damage estimated at €20,000 was caused to the headquarters of the local rescue service, while an enormous sink hole appeared on the road leading to the long beach.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael councillor Jim Finucane has suggested all counties involved in the new Wild Atlantic Way tourist route should form a united lobby group to deal with erosion problems all along the west coast.