“It hasn’t rained much but there is no sign of water going down.”

NO OTHER WAY Emer Feerick is pictured wading through Aughinish to reach the main road.

Ciara Galvin

AN entire community on the outskirts of Ballinrobe have been cut off for over a month as flood waters fail to abate.
Thirteen homes located in the townland of Aughinish, located between Ballinrobe and Partry have been cut off from basic services with some residents resorting to wading through the deep floodwaters to get to the main road.  
Emer Feerick and her partner Jessica have now resorted to wading one mile through the floods to reach the main road since the weekend, as the flooded road has disappeared and can no longer be safely driven on in the tractor they had been using.
“My house is fine, it’s on a hill but it’s about a mile from the road and we had been using a tractor up until Sunday, but the surface of the road is too bad to drive on it now,” said Emer, adding that potholes in some parts of the road are approximately two to three meters deep.

Waiting
Now the entire community are simply waiting for the water levels to go down.
“We think something is keeping the water. It hasn’t rained much but there is no sign of water going down. We have about 12 acres here and probably about eight acres of that is submerged.”
Though a ‘novelty at first’, the community, including elderly residents and families are frustrated with the ongoing situation.
One family are now using a large tractor to ferry their children to school each day.
“There are certain things you need, we are waiting on a delivery of fuel but they can’t get to us so we are probably going to run out, ” explains Emer.
Although none of the houses have been breached by floodwaters over the last number of weeks, water at one house in the area is a mere three inches away from the door, while Ms Feerick’s father endured the loss of his own jeep in the floods.
“Dad came to give us his jeep on December 9 and he went off the road and it was written off. The council were here before Christmas and put up bollards but they have been swept away. If it wasn’t for neighbours like Tony Walsh and Tommy Joe Feeney putting up markers on the road, we wouldn’t be able to go on...The council can’t do much, it’s frustrating.”
With no short term solution in sight, Emer and Jessica will continue to have to wade 30 minutes to the main road until flood waters go down.