The High Ground

So I was standing at the water’s edge at 8am yesterday morning when a lady drove up. Where I was standing shouldn’t have a water’s edge – since it is the middle of the Carnmore-Monivea road just a few miles to the east of Galway city (it is beyond the the airport). Though I’d seen pictures of it on the web, the flooding along the road was hard to believe – a lake had simply appeared from the ground and inundated the land, road, farms and Newells’ roofing company. The lady wasn’t the first to turn up – earlier,  local TD Noel Grealish had turned up to survey the damage – I presume he was doing the rounds of the flooding in his constituency. When the lady got out of her car, she stared out across the flooded road,  looking a bit distracted. I’m looking for a boat, she said. I thought that perhaps she needed a boat to get to her house – perhaps her house was surrounded by water. But no – she was waiting for her friend. The two of them were going to go to Dublin for the night, and no doubt some shopping would have be done too. The problem was that her friend lived further  out the road to Monivea – on the other side of the flood. Down the flooded road, the roof of a car was sticking out of the water and, as we were talking, a boat appeared from behind the submerged car and motored towards us. As soon as the boat reached the outer wall of Newell’s, a woman in a big jacket and wellies alighted and walked along the top of the wall over to dry land. It was a tricky path to take – there was a severe frost yesterday morning and the roads [and walls] were very slippy [ on my way out to this flood, I stopped to help a motorcyclist who had skidded and fallen at the Morris roundabout – he was ok]. As I said to her friend, I hope your friend doesn’t fall in but if she does, it will make a great picture. As soon as she hopped off the wall, she whipped off her woolly cap and her jacket to reveal a glamorous outfit below, and the wellies were replaced by a pair of far more fashionable boots. The determination and ability of ladies to look good under any circumstances never cease to amaze me.

As I write this on Sunday morning [November 29th], most of the flooding in east Galway has either stabilised or begun to subside. The floodwaters in Claregalway village  have disappeared, the water has subsided on either side of the Headford Road, and Craughwell and Ballinasloe are accessible. However, things look much more serious in South Galway and along the path of the river Shannon. For farmers around Gort, the flooding, followed by frost, will cause  real hardship for the next few weeks, as their animals [some of whom are marooned on ‘islands’ in the middle of flood] will need to be fed and sheltered. In Athlone, the river has risen by at least a metre since I took these pictures last week. I had taken some pictures of flooding in Athlone 3 years ago – it is interesting to compare the levels then to the levels during last week.

Things look more serious at lower reaches on the river Shannon. As the floods begin to stabilize and subside in the upper stages of the Shannon (such as in Carrick-on-Shannon), parts of Limerick and Clare have not yet seen the worst of the flooding yet. I can’t believe how far the floodwaters have reached on the University of Limerick campus, as well as in Parteen. There will be a full moon this week, and the tides will be higher than last week. There is a real danger that parts of Limerick city will be inundated.

There has been a lot of discussion over who is to blame for the flooding. The answer is not always straightforward. For sure, building in places like Oranmore and Gort, or indeed most of east Galway, is always going to court the danger of flooding. These areas have been wetlands for centuries, if not longer. Every acre of land that becomes a building, or carpark, or footpath, is an acre where water flows instantly to the nearest drain or low point, rather than being absorbed by soil or vegetation. An inch of rain (which is equivalent to 25.4 millimeters) per acre is just over 27, 000 gallons of water, or almost 103 million litres. Galway received 0ver 300mm of rain in November, Athlone received 210mm and parts of Cork received more than 400mm (one station in Tipperary near the Cork border received nearly 19 inches of rain this month). The new motorway between Ballinasloe and Galway city  (which was used as an emergency alternative route during the floods)  adds about 275 acres [not counting side roads] of developed land which means that every inch of rain landing on the motorway caused nearly 7 and a half million gallons of water to flow somewhere else…quickly.

So much other development has occurred in a piecemeal manner across the country. During the boom years, hundreds of thousands of new houses were built [in 2006, the ESRI noted that one-third of the entire housing stock – over half a million – had been built in the previous decade.] No-one was knock down buildings at the same rate, so bit by bit, the ability of land to absorb water has declined.  Farmland use has changed over time too, and it may be necessary in the future to pay farmers to maintain land in such a way that benefits society by retaining floodwater rather than for just producing food. Ironically, reclaiming boggy land [something that farmers have been encouraged to do for years] has a short-term benefit by allowing better cultivation, but it means that the water that would be stored there has to flow somewhere else. Banning construction is not the answer either – Ireland is a modern, industrial country which needs more, rather than less infrastructure. We just need to be smarter when planning and building it. Funnily enough, I wrote much the same thing last year.

What is probably not practical is trying to re-engineer whole areas that are natural floodlands. We are not the Dutch. I heard someone calling on the radio for Rahasane turlough to be drained. It is the largest in the country and has been a seasonal lake forever. Where would the water drain to ? Assuming that our politicians and local councils actually sit down and try to devise a strategy [andthere is no reason at all to think that they will], it would be nice to think that hard but necessary decisions would be made and enforced. Things like proper planning enforcement, long-term analysis of water systems and management and designation of flood-plain areas where no development can take place.[ I wonder if proper flood planning will appear on even one political brochure at the next local or national elections.]

Sometimes, we just have to accept that nature will take its course and head for the high ground.

Links :

I made a video of the flooded land around the River Suck in Ballinasloe a year ago (I videoed it from the train) – it shows the ‘normal’  level of  flooding in Winter. Compare it to a video I took last week of the flooding in the same spot [be sure to mute sound before you click on the links – it’s just wind noise and static].

Here is a set of pictures taken on Saturday morning of the floods to the east of Galway city.

As a follow-up to the pictures I took last week, I’d forgotten that I’d taken a set of before and after pictures of flooding in Athlone three years ago – the gallery is here. Compare it to this gallery of pictures that I took last week - the water is much higher now.