Southeast sees localised flooding and surging rivers after heavy rain

Heavy rainfall in the southeast on Monday led to serious flooding in some areas as river levels surged and surface rainwater made roads dangerous.

In Inistioge, Co Kilkenny, water from the River Nore crossed a field and flooded the grounds of St Colmcille’s National School.

“The water broke through one corner of one classroom but there was minimal damage inside the school,” said Michael Doyle, cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council and local Fine Gael representative.

“There is a sloping field behind the school and the water came roaring down the field and into the school.” Heavy rain often results in water getting into the field, but the volume on this occasion was “unbelievable”, he said.

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There was a huge amount of surface water on local roads, and the water levels in the Nore remain high.

“Everyone is keeping an eye on waterlevel.ie. The level is still rising and there is a risk of Inistioge being flooded is pretty high,” Cllr Doyle said.

Cllr Doyle told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland the village was prone to flooding and because it was previously flooded many did not have insurance and were today calculating the cost of flooding damage, he said. The high water levels on Monday were the highest he had ever seen, he said, adding: “That’s a worrying trend.”

Cllr Doyle noted flood relief funding of €1.2 million had been awarded to Inistioge for flood defences but that works had not yet started.

Elsewhere, Wexford councillor Donal Kenny said his area of Craanford had seen heavy flooding but the village had been lucky not to to suffer serious damage.

“The water was a foot high going over the road and you wouldn’t walk through it, it would cut the feet from under you,” the Fianna Fáil councillor said. “It was horrifying and people were worrying would they get through it, but lucky enough there wasn’t that much damage.”

Met Éireann is forecasting a mix of bright or sunny spells and scattered showers for today, with some heavy showers possible. However, there could be some heavy rain in the southeast around midday.

Climatologist Prof John Sweeney on Tuesday warned Ireland “will have to get used to” extreme weather events like the flooding experienced in the southeast and last week in parts of Cork.

Prof Sweeney told Newstalk Breakfast that all extreme weather events have the “fingerprint, however small” of climate change on them and that Storm Babet was no different.

“We know that this particular storm, however, developed in the very warm waters off the coast of Portugal. We’ve been having a marine heatwave most of the summer and autumn, so it was developing in waters which were one to two degrees Celsius warmer than usual.

“That means it could hold a lot more water vapours, so it’s arriving on our shores supercharged and it’s that really which, I think, is pointing to the climate change dimension as being instrumental in making the event more extreme as the residents of Midleton would no doubt testify.

“It’s [flooding] something I think we’ll have to get used to. It’s the kind of event we’re going to see more frequently and perhaps even to a greater severity in the years ahead as the air warms and as the waters around us warm.

“In that sense, it’s something that we’re going to have to pay the price for. We’re simply going to have to think about adaptation and protection of people in exposed and vulnerable locations,” Prof Sweeney said.

“We are looking at very large amounts of taxpayers’ money. I know that to build a seawall, for example, costs per kilometre roughly the same to build a motorway. So, we are facing hard choices.”