Wexford County Council officials convened today (Sunday, December 26) to review the impact of flash floods across the county on Christmas day.
More than 3.5 inches of rain fell in 24 hours “to devastating effect” according to the council.
Heavy rainfall caused the submergence of thousands of acres of farmland across the county, Agriland understands, and has put pressure on some dairy farmers’ slurry-storage capacity.
The council’s environment department has issued an appeal to farmers whose slurry tanks may have filled with surface water to avoid the temptation to spread slurry on already waterlogged fields.
“The resulting runoff can have a devastating polluting impact on neighbouring rivers and streams,” according to a council spokesperson.
Agriland contacted the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for information on any supports available for farmers. It awaits a response.
Wexford County Council representative, Cllr. Jim Moore, told Agriland that he had visited a number of farmers in the aftermath of the Christmas day deluge, who felt they had been “caught out” by “rainfall of a gigantic proportion”.
Met Éireann had issued a yellow rain warning for Christmas day in counties Wexford Carlow, Kilkenny, Wicklow and Waterford.
But, the Fine Gael councillor said, this warning was outmatched by the rain that fell.
“The extent of the rainfall far exceeded the warning of a yellow rain warning. When you get a yellow weather warning, you are not inclined to run for sandbags, and that is what we have ended up having to do,” he said.
“Across Wexford on Christmas day, all the council staff made themselves available to assist with sandbags, but there was no indication that this weather system was going to bring so much rain,” he added.
While he could not put a number on the farmers impacted, Cllr Moore, who represents the Rosslare Municipal District, said that thousands of acres of farmland were affected by floodwaters.
And he said some dairy farmers are particularly vulnerable.
“It is really impacting dairy farmers because their storage tanks are in danger of being flooded, and that is a real problem, and the other problem is there is nowhere to pump the waste,” he said.
“We have been overrun with rainfall of a gigantic proportion and the latest estimate is that about 90mm of rain fell in a 24-hour period,” he said.
Humanitarian assistance
This morning, Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys, said that supports will be provided to those affected as quickly as possible, in the form of a humanitarian assistance scheme.
The purpose of the scheme is to prevent hardship by providing income-tested financial support to people whose homes are damaged from flooding and severe weather events and who are not in a position to meet costs.
If a farmer’s home has been damaged by the recent flooding, they are encouraged to contact the department’s community welfare service to apply for emergency income support under the humanitarian assistance scheme.
While the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is the lead department for severe weather emergencies, the Office of Public Works (OPW) has responsibility for capital flood relief activities.
Hundreds of calls
According to Wexford County Council, hundreds of people were forced to put their Christmas day celebrations on hold as local river networks across the county were unable to cope with the staggering water volumes, described by many locals as “unprecedented in living memory” and of “biblical proportions”.
Flooding was reported in many parts of the county as early as 8:00a.m on Christmas morning.
Scores of council workers, including fire fighters, road crews, Civil Defence volunteers and support staff were called to assist in as flood waters breached river banks in all parts of the county.
The council’s out-of-office emergency phoneline recorded more than 250 calls throughout the day as members of the public sought assistance from the council to protect their properties against the rising flood waters.
More than 3,000 sandbags were deployed at scores of locations and while these did offer protection to householders in many area, not every home managed to escape the flood waters.
One of the areas worst affected was the village of Bridgetown, where the local canal burst it’ banks in the early morning, flooding neighbouring houses to a depth of more than a metre. Flood waters also destroyed road bridges at various locations.
Over the coming days Wexford County Council staff will carry out a comprehensive survey of the county’s road network to fully assess the scale of the damage caused and put a repair plan in place.
The council said it anticipates that significant government funding will be required to remediate the huge damage caused.
Anybody wishing to report incidents to Wexford County Council can contact the council’s emergency number 1890 666 777.