South Kilkenny area badly affected by rain; works on motorway a cause of concern
Some residents were cut off and many roads closed after heavy rain hit South Kilkenny, like all other parts of the country, during the past week.
Residents that never saw their homes affected were flooded, and were surrounded by many feet of water as they battled to keep the floods out of their homes and save personal possessions. It was the worst flooding in living memory, according to senior citizens in the district. What has made it worse is the fact that excessive rain had already saturated the land.
In the Dunkitt/Kilmacow area it was very severe, with many homes washed out and business in a long-established public house bought to a standstill. The exact extent of the damage done in terms of restoring some form of normality to the homes affected has yet to be assessed.
The emergency services were on hand in Dunkitt, and the Waterford fire brigade had to wade through about four feet of water to rescue a 94-year-old lady (house pictured above) by means of a river raft. Mrs Walsh, who has lived for more than 70 years here, had been in the company of her son Michael when the water levels became too much for them. She is a great lady with an ability to meet challenges like this, but is thankful to the services that were provided to lift her from her much-loved home (situated just under Dunkitt’s railway bridge).
Up the road, Kearns of Dunkitt, a public house situated on the main Waterford/Dublin road for generations, had to close for business. Flood water came from every angle into the premises and completely flooded the public bar and lounge/function room. Private houses in this area also saw frightening amounts of water breaching their homes.
Many people are pointing to the fact that floods such as these have never been observed here before now. Up to the north of these homes is where a new motorway is being constructed by the NRA, and it is suspected that water backed up as a result of a bridge over the new road, which made the water take to another course, with no place to go only into people’s homes.
This will be a big issue for insurance companies as they come to assess the huge damage done. For the first time since we have posted reports from this area, the local authority did not come out well; the comments from many on the local authorities’ response were quite negative. Sewerage is also affected and at Dunkitt Bridge a landfill site has been cited by officials of the Kilkenny County Council as a possible reason why water could not escape. Council representatives visited the site in recent days and are examining the situation. Some ground-moving equipment has also been moved on to this site, which previously carried water down to meet the River Blackwater.
For many with property at
Dunkitt this work, even if successful, will come too late. Property owners here saw several feet of water completely destroying the newly removed structures. Meanwhile many other areas of South Kilkenny were mentioned as being those where motorists should travel with care: the Inistioge area, the Mooncoin/Grannagh area (where a road closure sign went up at an early stage) and at Ballyhale and the Thomastown road out of Dublin (all under water).
To add insult to injury, there is suspicion that some residents in South Kilkenny have been conned by a contractor purporting to be involved construction of the new motorway, offering special offers for tarmacadam work. A special letter has been drafted and some clergy took the unusual step of reading this out to church-going people at masses in the South Kilkenny area last weekend. It seems that already many have given these tarmac contractors money to carry out ‘work’. So as the legal jargon would say: ‘buyer beware’!
- Article tools:
Comment- Download as PDF
-
Bookmark, Email, Print or Share