Flood prevention works are due to be completed at Iona Villas within the coming month, while several areas which have not been approved for flood relief funding will be discussed at a special meeting on Monday.
Athlone councillors received an update this week on the flood defences planned to help house owners in the town be prepared in the event of serious flooding this winter.
However, in the light of the heavy rainfall and flooding of recent weeks, several councillors expressed concern that not enough is being done to prevent a recurrence of flooding on the scale of last winter.
Following the floods of 2009, five schemes were designated as being in need of flood defences: Deerpark Road/ The Park/ Parnell Square/ Canal Banks; The Strand/ Wolfe Tone Terrace; Iona Villas; The Docks; and Brick Island - however, of these, only Iona Villas and The Strand received funding approval.
The works at Iona Villas, which were relatively straightforward, are intended to be completed within the coming month. The works at the Strand are much more complex, and are likely to involve the construction of demountable defences in what the council describes as a “very sensitive environment”. The council are in the process of recruiting specialist engineers to carry out these works.
All issues in relation to flooding in the town are to be discussed at the forthcoming meeting of the Flooding Subcommittee this Monday.
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Cllr Frankie Keena was concerned that work has not yet started in either Iona Park or The Strand, and at the omission of the other areas from funding.
“We need an emergency contingency plan for the people there. Come winter there are likely to be floods again. I think the council should be looking at emergency plans to reduce the amount of flooding,” he said.
Cllr Sheila Buckley-Byrne added that it had “gone so late at this stage, I don’t know if we are going to be equipped...With the rain that fell in the last week I think the town is in serious danger again.” She suggested getting regular readings regarding the levels of the Shannon.
Meanwhile Cllr Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran expressed concern at the ESB’s control of water levels on the Shannon, and suggested equipment such as sandbags and industrial pumps should be kept on standby by the council.
And Cllr Joe Whelan criticised decision-making that is based on statistics. “There have been significant changes in weather patterns; we can’t allow what happened last year to happen again. We can’t gamble,” he said.
However, director of services Barry Kehoe pointed out that there is no guarantee of flooding. “There is a long return period for the kind of flooding we had last November, a 500-year period statistically. It is very unlikely but it can happen. We have got to be prepared, but we have to be realistic too,” he said.
Mr Kehoe was to attend an OPW workshop yesterday [Thursday], and said plans were under way for all agencies to put information together to predict where and when flooding will occur.
“We promised we would do all we could, and we are doing all we can. It is important to remember the OPW are saying there will be a flood management report from 2015 and floods won’t occur after this. But we have to do everything we can over the next four or five winters,” he added.
