Waterford roads in ‘desperate state’ after county ‘devastated’ by Storm Chandra

Some roads in County Waterford have been left in a “desperate state” after the county was “devastated” by Storm Chandra, a council meeting has heard.

Independent councillor Declan Clune raised the issue at the February plenary meeting of Waterford City and County Council.

Cllr Clune said: “Passage East, rightly so, received a lot of attention locally and nationally in relation to what happened down there but equally there’s a lot of other parts of the county that did suffer from a lot of flooding events.

“I just want to see how the initial assessment is done. I know that out my way, there’s a lot of roads in terrible condition as a result of the amount of water that is flowing down the sides.”

He asked if there was any indication of how much financial support the council might get from the Government in dealing with the aftermath of the storm.

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He also enquired as to the responsibility of landowners when it comes to water that leaves their property and flows onto a public road.

“My understanding is that they’re responsible for diverting or finding some solution to prevent that water reaching public roads and causing a hazard.

“The ground is saturated, it can’t take anymore and I think responsibility has to go onto landowners or householders to fix any issues that they might have on their land.”

In response to Cllr Clune, Director of Services Gabriel Hynes said that Waterford has had “significant rainfall” over the past 12 weeks.

He said that the ground is saturated and that “significant damage” has been done throughout the city and county.

Mr Hynes continued: “Each district has assessed the damage in the last week. I’ve had discussions with the Department Inspector in relation to damages and we’ve finalised a list of that damage.

“Our core estimate is that we have [had] €8 million of damage done throughout the city and county.

“We are currently submitting that list to the Department, requesting severe weather funding to that amount.”

Later in the meeting, Sinn Féin councillor Jim Griffin also spoke of the impact Storm Chandra has had throughout the county.

Cllr Griffin said: “Storm Chandra mightn’t have had the devastation that the likes of Ophelia had on parts of the country but I know it was still devastating for many people in Waterford city and county.”

He congratulated the council staff who helped in dealing with the storm. He suggested that the council seeks more than €8 million in funding, given the situation on the roads.

“The South East and our corner of the country, has fallen asunder. The roads are in a desperate state,” he concluded.

In response to Cllr Griffin, Sean McKeown, Chief Executive of Waterford City and County Council, described Storm Chandra as “an unprecedented event”.

Mr McKeown continued: “We had 11 days of either a yellow event or an orange event in succession.

“We had crews, our drive crews and our fire staff on call early in the morning and late in the evening.”

He outlined that the council’s customer service desk had received calls in relation to over 90 incidents which occurred across the city and county.

He continued: “There were a couple of incidents then where firefighters had to be stationed and positioned for a period of time to ensure that houses weren’t flooded.

“That was in Woodstown, Faithlegg and Gracedieu in the city, so we were under pressure over that period of time.

“Like the elected members, I’d like to take this opportunity to give great credit to the ground crews, our fire staff and our customer service desk, who worked long hours to ensure we were able to respond to the incident.”

The council said in a statement that its severe weather management team is continuing to monitor the situation.

Meanwhile, ground crews have been deployed to deal with road network issues throughout the city and county.