Kerry man has to use industrial pumps to keep flood water away from his home

'Our next problem is we have the high tide around 8pm tonight,' says George Sugrue who is battling the deluge outside Tralee

George Sugrue knee-deep in water outside his family home just off the main Castlemaine road on the outskirts of Tralee, Co Kerry. Picture: Domnick Walsh

George Sugrue woke in his home at 3am this morning, Thursday, to an all-too-frequent sight. 

The fields surrounding his home just off Castlemaine Road on the outskirts of Tralee had flooded from a nearby stream. The retired Bus Éireann driver readied two water pumps and got to work.

“We’re still fighting it because it hasn’t gone down,” he said on Thursday afternoon from his home in Co Kerry. “I have to keep both pumps going all the time.” 

A drone picture of George and Mary Sugrue's home amid the encroaching flood waters after heavy rain and high tides which, Mr Sugrue says, causes vast quantities of water to back up in the concrete culvert. Picture: Domnick Walsh

The largest of his six industrial water pumps can pump 60,000 gallons per hour, but it isn’t enough to keep all the water at bay from his land where he lives with his wife Mary and other relatives.

Spot flooding has been reported in areas across Munster on Thursday including Tralee, Killarney, Mallow and Dunmanway. In the case of Mr Sugrue, heavy rain backed up by spring tides has caused the flooding.

“We’re at it non-stop as it’s pouring into the yard all the time, so the pumps are keeping us clear," he said. 

If we didn’t have the pumps, we would have seven inches of water in the house now.

“We have adapted the ground floor of the house to a large extent to allow for the floods to go in and back out. And we use the small pumps to then to pump out the house.” 

A nearby tributary to the Lee is the main source of their woes, as a small culvert for the river cannot take the volume of water after large amounts of rain.

“It hits the concrete of that, backs up and floods 50 acres straight away,” he said.

George and Mary Sugrue in the floodwater outside their home just off the main Castlemaine Road on the outskirts of Tralee. Picture: Domnick Walsh

The riverbanks have also eroded in recent years, allowing for more frequent floods.

Mr Sugrue, his wife and his neighbours have been cut off from the main road and are stuck in their homes until the water recedes.

My brother died next door last week. He was totally paralysed in the bed. The ambulance could not have got in with that flood. 

"It’s too deep in our avenue to get out, so we’re living on what we have in the kitchen.” 

He said generations of local politicians have failed to find a solution for the 70 years he’s witnessed it.

“If you can trap the water up in this area here, that’s a slow release into [Tralee], which of course suits everybody.

“We have done everything we possibly can for ourselves before looking for help from the county council. 

"We’ve bought the pumps, we’ve put up barricades, we’ve got sandbags, we’ve got permission to put up extra barricades around our boundaries. We really cannot do any more to alleviate the problem.

“Our next problem of course is we have the high tide around 8pm tonight, and it will probably back up the Lee and hit us again.”