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SURROUNDED BY STACKED furniture, Maureen Peare was furious at being left with a familiar sight in her Enniscorthy home.
Peare’s house on Island Road was among the almost 40 homes rocked by heavy flooding in Co Wexford yesterday.
It’s the latest occasion she has seen her house flooded — having lived under the roof since she was born 76 years ago — and she told The Journal that it was “wrong” that residents have to keep fearing rising water entering their homes.
“It’s becoming laughable,” Peare said as she blamed senior politicians for delays in finding a way to resolve a long-running dispute over Enniscorthy’s flood defences. “They’re not putting people’s lives first at all.”
Island Road runs alongside the River Slaney and was especially vulnerable when it burst its banks yesterday.
Water levels in Enniscorthy have dropped today, but some roads around Enniscorthy remain closed due to continued flooding.
Peare and other residents hit out at the delays in informing locals about the severity of the flooding.
This was acknowledged by Housing Minister and Wexford TD James Browne, who said there were failings in informing people about the extent of Storm Chandra in advance of the storm after parts of the east and south-east of Ireland were rocked by heavy flooding.
Peare was among the residents of Island Road who told The Journal that while they knew flooding was looking likely, they were unsure when it would hit.
In her case, she said, it was a phone call from her neighbour at 5 o’clock yesterday morning.
“She had been woken by the council distributing sandbags,” Peare said. “We put the sandbags at the door and watched and waited for it to come into our homes.”
As her house is located in the centre of the street, it was among the last of those to take on water.
“We had time to move some of the furniture,” Peare said as she gestured at the tables and chairs placed on top of each other.
Peare’s nephew Alan told The Journal that he had planned on getting a trailer down to the house to take away valuables, but there wasn’t enough time.
“This is the fourth time in my lifetime — in 48 years — that I’ve been out at that time of the morning trying to relocate furniture,” Alan said. “The water has come in at other times, but it’s been very marginal.”
This meant that not everything could be moved yesterday, including Maureen’s downstairs wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Whether those items will “survive or not is another question”, she admitted.
When contacted, Wexford County Council said its staff have speaking to residents and businesses since Saturday about possible flooding.
“In addition to direct engagement with locals in the immediate river catchment area, we issued social media posts on Monday, warning people of the flood risk for Tuesday and advising people to take care,” a spokesperson said.
The council spokesperson added that it aims to speak directly with people in “areas of greatest vulnerability” as part of any flood plan.
This afternoon saw the local authority open community support centres in Enniscorthy and Bunclody to support impacted homeowners with access to charging, hot water and showers.
These are based at Rapparees Starlights GAA club in Bellefield, Enniscorthy and St Aidan’s Hall, Irish Street, Bunclody.
A third community support centre has been established at Templeshannon Community and Childcare centre for charging and hot water.
Skips lined Island Road today, stuffed with linoleum flooring that was too damaged to use again.
One man in his 80s told The Journal that he had spent all morning “pulling up lino” and expected it would take the rest of the day to remove the rest. “I’m sick of it,” the man said.
Volunteers from the local Civil Defence and other locals were on hand throughout the day to help residents clear out properties.
Like many others on Island Road, the Peares have their own system based on their family network and friends.
Elsewhere on the road, two women said they were doing a welfare check on a male colleague living nearby.
The man, who declined to be named for this article, said he was trying to figure which of his electric sockets were still operating and safe to use.
He feared appliances like his washing machine were likely no longer operational.
Some had been provided by his landlord, but he admitted he was reluctant to ask the property’s owner about providing a new one, and hoped it could be covered under the emergency payments schemes set up by the government.
There is more rain on the way, as Met Éireann has issued a Status Yellow rainfall warning for counties Wexford, Dublin, Wicklow, Carlow, Kilkenny and Waterford comes into effect from midnight tonight for 24 hours.
As catchments are “already heavily saturated” from recent rainfall, even modest additional showers could lead to “rapid” surface flooding and rising river levels, the forecaster advised.
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