Storm Debi may have set new high water levels in Galway last week, but expert analysis shows city and county could have faced floods more than 2ft higher if tides had been at seasonal peaks.
At 5am on Monday, November 14, Storm Debi set a new high-water record of 2.774m (more than 9ft ) at the OPW’s automated gauge at Oranmore bridge. Although just two inches more than the extreme flood levels seen during Storm Eleanor in 2018, this is the highest water level seen since modern records began in 1992.
At Wolfe Tone Bridge in Galway city centre, the high-water level during last Monday morning’s storm was 4.651m. This is just half an inch lower than the previous record high of 4.667m, set also in 2018.
These measurements do not account for wave heights or storm surge, especially when there is storm-force onshore wind as experienced during Storm Debi. This means the actual levels experienced may have been temporarily much higher.
Responding to the record levels, Oranmore-based county councillor Liam Carroll (FG ) said his immediate priority is to repair the storm-battered wall along the R338 Coast Road, and “examine every possibility” for improved infrastructure. He pointed to sea defences in Lahinch, Co Clare and in Spiddal, Co Galway as exemplars. Asked if emergency sea defence works should bypass normal planning requirements, he said: “I can’t say that. There could be a case for that, as we have to do this right. Climate change is with us, and we may only get one opportunity to get this right - first time.”
“If any city in Europe is at the forefront of flooding from climate change, it is Galway city,” says Galway an Taisce spokesman Peter Butler. “Other low-lying cities, such as in the Netherlands, are equally affected by ice melting and El Niño, but they do not also face the full force of the Atlantic.”
Butler suggests that in order to fully protect the historic core of Galway City, a range of sea defences need to be constructed from Lough Atalia to Salthill. This may include underground concrete walls behind the stone-cut quaysides of the Docks, Claddagh and city centre where he suspects tidal water under storm pressures flow under existing structures to “bubble up” through drains onto roads.
Although NASA does not calculate sea level rises for Galway as part of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC ) calculations, it does for Dublin, with rises of 0.7m (more than 2ft ) expected with “high confidence” by 2120.
