Kilkenny businesses urged to take action against extreme weather

Businesses are being urged to prepare themselves against more extreme weather episodes with council staff saying that the currently drainage system is unable to cope with such events.

Record levels of rainfall fell in just under an hour last month wreaking havoc on local businesses. On June 19 approximately 42 millimetres of rain fell in under an hour during a thunderstorm in the city centre.

Damage was caused to roads and businesses and the emergency services and local authority pumped water out of buildings and cleared gullies to try and limit the damage.

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City engineer, Ian Gardner told the meeting that the worst affected area in the city was in Patrick Street when manhole covers were stuck and floodwater found weak areas and burst up onto the roads and footpath.

Councillor John Coonan remarked that it is likely such a weather event will happen again.
“None of us saw that amount of rainfall in such a short period of time. We are in climatic change and this is not the last we will see of these conditions,” he said.

Cllr Andrew McGuinness commended the council on cleaning out gullies ‘post flooding’ and highlighted issues with gullies close to Nowlan Park which he said are ‘compacted with dirt’.

In relation to the flooding in the Patrick Street area of the city Cllr Martin Brett remarked that ‘we have to try and make sure that it doesn’t happen again’.

Cllr David Fitzgerald, said that he has ‘never seen such a flood in all my life’ referring to the afternoon of June 19 while Cllr Eugene McGuinness told the meeting there can be ‘no doubt that we are destroying the planet’ and also called on the council to put aside money for pumps.”

“What we see as an isolated rainfall will become the norm,” he said and also said that there was flooding damage caused to premises on John Street and in the Butts.

“I don’t think any system in Ireland would be able to deal with that intensity of rainfall. This was because of the level of rainfall and the gullies could not cater for that volume,” said Director of Services, Tim Butler adding that flooding on John Street has been remedied by the Flood Relief Scheme.

Mr Gardner said that the best advice to business and property owners is to have their own infrastructure in place including a floodgate and a submersible pump. .