An agricultural contractor in Co. Sligo has been rather busy this past week with his slurry equipment. Unsurprisingly, it was not slurry he was pumping, but floodwater.

Gerry Davey Agri was called on last Monday, February 24, to help save a local car dealership from pending doom as rising floodwaters put the premises in danger.

Speaking to AgriLand, Gerry explained: “We were pumping water from a field in Carraroe, Co. Sligo, that floods during wet weather.

“When the field floods, the water rises and causes flooding on the road as well as to a number of houses and a nearby car garage.

“We started pumping for the garage first; we were going day and night for a few days.

We got him sorted out and then we went to a different spot but it was all connected to the one water level so no matter where we were pumping in that area, we were dropping it.

“We started pumping on Monday morning and never stopped for the whole week until Saturday evening at 8:00pm. We were going day and night.”

Gerry noted: “We have won the battle and the water has done no harm to anybody in the area for now – thank God.

We were pumping the water over 1km across land into a big river which was then going directly into Sligo Bay.

Concluding, Gerry noted that today, Monday, March 2, “will be the last day of it; we have it well down now”, he added.

A New Holland TM165 and a New Holland T7050 coupled with umbilical systems were each pumping 300m³ of water/hour.

A total of three houses and a local car dealership were all at imminent risk of severe flooding.