Skip to main content

It Never Rains But It Pours - Summer In Dublin Ireland...

Dubliners are bracing themselves for further flooding as heavy downpours are predicted in the coming days.

The news comes as residents in many parts of the capital are today coming to terms with the damage wreaked by Saturday's intense rainfall.

Met Eireann says heavy and thundery rain is likely in Leinster tonight, with flooding a real possibility in many areas.

And the outlook for the coming days does not look much better, with heavy rain predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a senior Dublin City Council official has admitted the capital's drainage system cannot cope with the "freak" rainfall which occurred over the weekend.

Rainfall

City engineer Tom Leahy said the system was designed to deal with normal or even heavy rainfall. "It cannot deal with these extreme events," Mr Leahy said today.

A top climate expert warned that Dubliners will have to get used to the heavy rainfall and flash floods that hit the city on Saturday.


Dr John Sweeney of NUI in Maynooth said the monsoon-like conditions were a product of warmer sea and land temperatures.

Meanwhile, a resident in Balgriffin in north Dublin told today how she and her family had to clamber out the window of their bungalow to escape the rising water.

Alice Geraghty said by 7pm on Saturday the lower part of her split-level home was under water. "By eight o'clock, after numerous calls to the fire brigade, we had to leave via one of the windows," Mrs Geraghty told RTE's Morning Ireland. She described the situation as "very traumatic and distressing".

"We returned to a scene of utter devastation," Mrs Geraghty revealed, saying that her garden had been destroyed.

"The smell and dirt in the house is incredible," she added.

Dr Sweeney said it was "probably the most intense rainfall event in eastern Ireland since Hurricane Charlie in 1986".

And he said we will have to get used to it happening more often in the future.

"We have to expect we will get more of this," Dr Sweeney added.

He said when the sewage comes up through the drains in a town like Celbridge in Co Kildare you "have to blame the local authority". A huge clean-up operation was continuing today after the mass floodings over the weekend.

The harsh weather on Saturday evening caused extensive traffic congestion across the capital and the cancellation of a number of sporting events.

Record levels of rainfall, at 76.2mm, were recorded at Dublin Airport over the 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday night.

Several routes around Dublin were made impassable over the weekend as a result of the rain.
Flooding affected many parts of Leinster, with a river bursting its banks in Laois, and flooding reaching over two feet in some housing estates in Celbridge, Co Kildare.


In Dublin, the city council put in place its crisis management plan when the severity of the situation became clear.

Dublin fire brigade received some 800 calls over an eight-hour period -- the equivalent of a Halloween night. Staff who had been on holidays were drafted in to help.

A spokesman for Dublin Fire Brigade said crews spent most of the night rescuing people.

"People would be ringing up saying their houses are flooded. Some were trapped in cars and needed to be rescued," he said.

The severe flooding affected the north- and south-bound lanes of the M50 as well as the south-bound part of the port tunnel, which was close for a time over the weekend.

The M50 was especially badly affected between the Finglas and Ballymun exits, while the M1 was closed at Shantalla bridge.


Report by Cormac Murphy - Evening Herald

Popular posts from this blog

Ireland's Celtic Tiger Excesses...

'Bang twins' may never get to run a business again... POST-boom Ireland is awash with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses, as a rattle around the carcasses of fallen property developers and entrepreneurs will show. Few can compete with the so-called Bang twins for youth, glamour and tasteful extravagance. Simon and Christian Stokes, the 35-year-old identical twins behind Bang Cafe and exclusive private members club, Residence, saw their entire business go bust with debts of €9m, €3m of which is owed to the tax man. The debt may be in the ha'penny place compared with the eye-watering billions owed by some of their former customers. But their fall has been arguably steeper and more damning than some of the country's richest tycoons. Last week, further humiliation was heaped on them with revelations that even as their businesses were going under, the twins spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five star holidays and sumptu

Property Tycoon's Dolce Vita Ends...

Tycoon's dolce vita ends as art seized... THE Dublin city sheriff has seized an art collection and other valuables from the Ailesbury Road home of fallen property developer Bernard McNamara. The collection will be sold to help pay his debts. The sheriff, Brendan Walsh, is believed to have moved against the property developer within the past fortnight, calling to his salubrious Dublin 4 home acting on a court order to seize anything of value from his home to reimburse his creditors. The sheriff is believed to have taken paintings from the family home along with a small number of other items. The development marks a new low for Mr McNamara, once one of Ireland's richest men but who now owes €1.5bn . The property developer and former county councillor from Clare turned the building firm founded by his father Michael into one of the biggest in Ireland. He is the highest-profile former tycoon to date to be targeted by bailiffs, signalling just how far some of Ireland's billionai

I fear a very different kind of property crash

While 80% of people over 40 own their own home just a third of adults under 40 do. This is disastrous for social solidarity and cohesion Changing this system of policymaking requires a government to act in a way that may be uncomfortable for some. Governments have a horizon of no more than five years, and the housing issue requires long-term planning. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was intended to tackle some of these problems. According to its website its remit is to “drive the delivery of better public services, living standards and infrastructure for the people of Ireland by enhancing governance, building capacity and delivering effectively”. So how is the challenge of delivering homes for people in 2024 and beyond going to be met? The extent of the problem is visible in the move by companies, including Ryanair, to buy properties to house staff. Ryanair has, justifiably, defended its right to do so. IPAV has long articulated its views on how to improve supply an