Skibbereen floods: Council says Covid-19 delayed work on surface-water drains

Skibbereen began early this morning after floods affected some 15 businesses in the town last night. Picture: Andy Gibson

Cork County Council has released a statement addressing the flooding in Skibbereen following Storm Ellen.

There was outrage in the town as the flooding last night came after the town's near €18m investment in flood defences.

Cork County Council has issued a statement saying due Covid-19, minor works had to be delayed.

They said that during the delivery of the overall flood defence scheme, “a number of areas in the town were identified were surface water drains could have had the potential to cause flooding”.

The statement said: “One of the locations identified was the ‘The Cutting’ just off Bridge Street.

“The OPW provided funding for a minor works project to construct a screen chamber where the overground drain entered into a piped drain.

“This entailed construction of a large concrete chamber with a specially manufactured screen arrangement.

“This part of the project was interrupted by Covid-19 but is now nearing completion with screen installation currently underway.

“The screen was completed and due for installation this week with the entire process expected to take another week to complete.

“Unfortunately it was not possible to complete this work before last night's unusually severe summer storm, where the rate of rainfall reached 40mm an hour resulting in exceptional rainfall which overwhelmed the storm drain system at 'The Cutting' with the run-off overflowing onto Bridge Street causing flooding to a number of premises in the early part of the night.” 

Skibbereen now. #StormEllen #WestCork pic.twitter.com/ZyWoZ81lFr

— Holly Cairns TD (@HollyCairnsTD) August 19, 2020

The council added that the “scheme is substantially complete and has served this purpose well”.

Skibbereen has a long history of flooding, and experienced two major flood events in 2009 when over 120 residential properties and more than 70 businesses, schools, care centres, public buildings and sporting facilities were flooded.

It prompted a major tidal and fluvial flood prevention project on the River Ilen and on three tributaries flowing through Skibbereen – the Caol, Assolas and Glencurragh.

The project, which began in 2016, included the construction of almost three kilometres of flood walls, just over four kilometres of embankments and a number of storm water pumping stations.

The stark concrete finish on some of the flood walls and culverts drew criticism but engineers said the project was a 200-year flood prevention scheme that would provide protection for more than 300 homes and businesses in the town.

The scheme protected the town from flooding during sustained periods of heavy rain on a number of dates in November and December 2018.