Newport deluge

Newport street deluge

Thousands of euros worth of damage caused as drainage pipe overflows onto low-lying street

Claire Egan

A NEWPORT couple awoke in the early hours of Monday morning to find flood waters cascading into their family-run drapery business, decimating thousands of euros worth of stock and leaving them with a mammoth clean-up operation.
Raw sewage was also found in the flood waters, which were finally cleared after a 12-hour pumping and clean-up effort by local fire service crews.
Angela and Martin Corcoran, proprietors of Corcoran’s Drapery at George’s Street, bore the costly brunt of a local authority drainage pipe at The Quay overflowing, flooding a car park to the rear of Hotel Newport and a number of adjoining buildings, including an apartment owned by the Corcorans. This is the second such incident in the past six weeks, as flood waters also damaged the premises on December 8 last year, forcing Angela to refurbish the family-owned apartment.
“I woke at about four o clock in the morning after my husband came into the room. I looked out the back window of our house and saw water flowing down the street. It was horrendous. The water was pouring into the store room at the back of the shop, while the apartment we had there also had water gushing in. There was over two foot of water in the apartment while the store room, stock and flooring was completely destroyed. Luckily, the shop was not flooded – but only just. The fire service managed to keep the flood waters at bay,” Angela Corcoran told The Mayo News yesterday (Monday).
Westport Fire Service and volunteers at the Newport branch worked from approximately 3am Monday morning until mid-afternoon, pumping water from George’s Street up to the Main Street in Newport in a massive clean-up operation. Residents of the nearby Ros Mór housing estate were also affected by the flooding, as was the local Holy Family National School.
According to local Fianna Fáil councillor, Frank Chambers, severe neglect of a drainage pipe by Mayo County Council is the root cause of what he claims is an on-going problem, which has dogged the town for over a decade.
“This particular pipe down near The Quay road becomes blocked out with debris and other such material. It becomes backed-up and ends up overflowing all the way into George’s Street. It’s a pipe that is under severe pressure, servicing numerous developments and it is one that should have been improved years ago. It needs €120,000 to €130,000 to simply carry out drainage works, widen and reconstruct the pipe. Floods in that area have been a regular feature and on this occasion it has been extremely severe. It is a bad blow for the family as they were also flooded in December of last year,” said Cllr Chambers.
However, Mr Peter Hynes, Director of Services for the area, contended that the flooding problem was not simply confined to the drainpipe alone, but included contributory factors such as low-lying terrain and high sea tides.
“We sought over €400,000 two years ago from the Government Central Funds and the OPW to carry out an extensive project and, unfortunately, we did not receive any funding. It is not just simply a matter of fixing a pipe. During the course of the next few days, our engineering staff will assess the the situation and we will look for resources to fix the problem,” said Mr Hynes.