Limerick and Athlone brace for more floods

By Elaine Loughlin

Local authorities are on alert with water levels due to peak around Limerick city today.

Other areas along the Shannon and in particular in the Athlone area will continue to rise until tomorrow when authorities expect the levels to peak.

With water levels on the Shannon still increasing – a 3cm rise was recorded in the Athlone area in the last 24 hours – homes and businesses are still at risk.

Although temperatures will remain above normal for this time of the year, Met Éireann predicts more rain this week.

Forecaster Gerald Fleming said: “We had significant rainfall on Saturday last and in the coming week we will have some rain every day.

“I would have to stress that the accumulation of rain over the next six or seven days will be above normal, it seems like it is coming fairly steadily, in other words, very few dry days, Wednesday seems to be the best, but there will be above normal rain over the next seven days.”

Chairperson of the National Coordination Group John Barry, which has been meeting daily since the onset of the flooding, warned the public to remain vigilant with many roads still flooded.

“Over the weekend there had been some disruption and there is still some disruption on roads across the country, railways have been affected as well,” he said.

“We would still like to put forward public safety as being a concern to us.

“Where roads are flooded it would be advised not to try to traverse roads, take a detour, us another route.

“Farmland, again we are concerned about safety on farmland and we would be advising that farmers wouldn’t undertake operations involving crossing flood waters or rescuing animals, or bringing animals across flood waters, don’t undertake this alone.”