The prolonged cold spell not only had a drastic impact on peoples’ lives in Kilkenny but it also took its toll on local authority coffers with the final figure spent on dealing with the big freeze calculated at €500,000.
And it’ i understood that the Government has told the local authorities nation-wide that they will not be allocating any further funding to the councils in the wake of the big freeze.
This figure of €500,000 is the estimated cost associated with the severe weather response and includes costs of road salting, fire brigade services, water services, Civil Defence, and all other emergency fire ancillary services.
The big freeze began on December 12, and continued until January 14, with the only nights on which gritters were not out in Kilkenny being December 29-30.
During the cold snap some 2,500 people used the water outlet points across the county operated by the fire stations and county council staff. Water was also delivered to householders in the city and county who were without.
The Civil Defence also manned the emergency help line, made deliveries of water, food and meds and provided transport to community health nurses to patients in inaccessible areas. Some 120 such visits were made by the service.
An emergency response room set up by the council acted as a centre for all emergency response services and calls from members of the public were dealt with from here.
During the cold spell some 16 gritters were deployed along with three snow ploughs. Some 70 tons of salt was used on the roads per night and 140 miles of national roads and 160 miles of regional/local roads were treated per day. All 60 outdoor council staff were deployed to snow and ice clearance.
County manager Joe Crockett paid tribute to the local authority staff at this month’s meeting of Kilkenny County Council for their combined efforts during the prolonged adverse weather conditions.
“We have to acknowledge the community effort and the enormous performance of those out dealing with the conditions. There was spectacular work done by our own front-line staff, and although Christmas is a holiday season — none of them had a holiday,” he pointed out.
Cllr Mary Hilde Kavanagh paid tribute to the staff and asked the council to write to the Minister to demand extra funds.
“Some €500,000 was spent because of nature. There has been huge damage to our infrastructure with potholes and crumbling roads. We need to ask the minister - cap in hand - for help,” she said.
