Cork City Council has defended its policy on drain cleaning and insisted most of the flooding in the city on Sunday was due to the volume of rain. It said any drain blockages were due to debris being washed into culverts during the event and not due to them blocked beforehand.
Cork City Council director of services and operations, David Joyce said there are some 20,000 gullies in the newly expanded Cork City Council area. He said while they cannot be cleaned every day, he was satisfied that they were substantially clear and functioning prior to Sunday’s downpour.
According to Met Éireann, 54.9 mms of rain fell in Cork on Sunday and Mr Joyce said the bulk of this rain fell between 1pm and 6pm but that within this time period, there were some really intense downpours which led to inundation as the drains could not cope with the sudden volume of rain.
“We have a dedicated unit with a programme of works who clear the large number of drains across the city on a scheduled basis – the old city alone has 16,000 gullies and there are probably more than 20,000 gullies if you add in the transition area, following the city expansion in 2019.
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“Now, we are not going to clear 20,000 gullies every day of the week – we do have a gully cleaning programme and I am very clear because I was out yesterday, the vast majority of gullies were clear and it was the volume of water that fell over a very short period of time that caused problems.
“In a small number of locations, there was an awful lot of debris, stones, rocks, mud, leaves, branches, washed into culverts which did block the culverts during the event, but the culverts were most certainly clear and free flowing before the event and only became clogged during the event.”
[ Flooding and road closures in Cork after torrential rain hits countyOpens in new window ]
Mr Joyce said a dedicated crew of four to five council staff are permanently on drain clearing duties but that on Sunday, the council deployed over 100 staff to help clear debris blocking drains which led to flooding on routes such as the N27 South Link Road and the N40 South Ring Road.
Mr Joyce was responding to questions put to him by The Irish Times after several homeowners and businesspeople, who had their homes and premises flooded in areas like Turners Cross and Douglas Street, attributed the flooding to drains being blocked with leaves and other debris.
Pensioners, Margaret and Garrett Barry said they returned to their two-storey house on Erin Terrace in Turners Cross to find water levels rising as heavy rain led to flooding on nearby Curragh Road where traffic was causing a backwash that was threatening their homes.
“We were flooded once before back in 1994 but the council did some work and put in a non-returnable valve and things were fine. But a council worker told me last year that it had been removed and we ended with up to two inches of water in our hall,” said Ms Barry.
She said they had more than half a metre (2 feet) of water in their back yard which came into the kitchen, bathroom and hall.
Ms Barry said it as “down to the drains” which she says were blocked with leaves and debrish and “haven’t been cleared in a while”. She said once the fire brigade came to clear them the water went down. However it was cars and truckks on the Curragh Road “causing the wash that was the worst”, she said
[ Flood danger for east and south with heavy rains expectedOpens in new window ]
Michael Murphy, Manager of the nearby Turners Cross Tavern said flooding started at about 3.30pm and within 20 minutes there was 15 cm of water, leaving around 30 customers trapped on higher stepped areas.
“We have customers coming here 50 and 60 years and they never saw anything like it – it was down to drains being blocked with leaves and debris because as soon as the Fire Brigade arrived and cleared the drains, it all just drained away again within ten or twenty minutes.
“We had fellows stuck in here but typically Cork, fellows knocked a bit of craic out of it, one fellow had a pair of wellies and he was giving people a loan of them when they needed to go to the toilet or up to the bar for a drink because there was nothing they could do, they couldn’t leave.
Just over a kilometre away, Justine Looney and her staff at Cork Flower Studio were also cleaning up after flood waters came down Summerhill South and flowed into Douglas Street and while her flood barriers stopped water coming in the front door, shores in the floor provided entry elsewhere.
“We’re never affected by tidal flooding here – it’s usually summer flooding when the drains can’t cope – they are not cleaned regularly and not maintained regularly so they can’t cope with the volume of water and certainly not with what fell yesterday because that was just biblical.”
“We have sort of designed the shop around flooding so we keep all the stock of the floor, but the ends of shelving all got soaked and we’re hoping that it will be okay when it dries out, but we may have to replace the shelves and we’re going to have take up the lino as well as water got in under it.”
