Cork businesses cleaning up after sudden floods insist lessons must be learned
Michael Murphy, general manager of Turner's Cross Tavern, discarding floor coverings after Sunday's floods. Picture: Jim Coughlan
The manager of a bar which was flooded for the first time in its history during Sunday’s intense cloud-bursts over Cork says lessons must be learned.
Mike Murphy, who runs the Turner’s Cross Tavern, said they were hit by a foot of water in just 20 minutes, trapping several customers inside.
“Several customers who lived in this area all their lives said they've never seen anything like it," he said.
"We have two raised areas and we were able to move customers up into those areas but the water meant nobody could leave, and nobody could come in.
"One of our customers has a pair of wellies and was passing them around to anyone who needed to go to the toilet."
He said people made the best of a bad situation but added: "It was well after 6pm before the fire brigade got here and in fairness, once they unblocked the drains, the water subsided pretty quickly.
“But we didn’t see a council worker until after midnight. Lessons must be learned out of this, especially around the maintenance of drains and gullies.”
His was one of several clean-ups which were under way across Cork City and suburbs on Monday after some 50mm of rain was dumped on the city in just a few hours on Sunday afternoon — nearly four times the 15mm predicted in the yellow rainfall warning which was in place.
It was one of the top 15 highest daily rainfall measurements at Cork Airport in the last 60 years and one of the top five highest October daily totals.
More rainfall is due this week as Met Éireann has issued a status yellow rainfall warning for Cork for Wednesday. The warning is in place from 4am until 10pm and has also been issued for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford.
City Hall said the city’s network of trash screen and gullies were checked and all clear before the rainfall event. But a spokesman said such was the intensity and short duration of the rainfall that the local drainage network was simply overwhelmed.
The South City Link Road, the N40 South Ring Road, as well as Blackpool, Glanmire, Douglas, Togher, North Mall and Ballyphehane were badly affected.
City council crews, Cork City Fire Brigade and gardaí were deployed across the city to manage traffic and roads. Council crews responded to 100 locations, helping people free drains.
“If the same amount of rain had fallen in lighter showers over four hours, there would have been no significant flooding,” the council’s director of services in the operations directorate, David Joyce said.
While such intense cloud burst events have been rare, he said the council was very aware of climate change and has built into the new city development plan commitments to adapt the city to changing weather patterns.
He said that may, in some cases, require an upgrade of drains, but it could also mean adapting “sustainable urban drainage” methods or “natural surface water management” that could see large green areas in urban locations designated as flood storage areas.
Mr Murphy said as they assess the damage and arrange for repairs, it could be several days before the bar is open again.
“We are waiting to see how much damage has been done to the floor, but we’ve got damage to fridges, cabinets and our speaker system is done,” he said.
“We hope to be open for Friday for the last Cork City game of the season. We have no choice but to reopen. It’s either that or fold.”
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