Residents of 'Lagoon Enda' in Dundalk sick of inaction

While flooding in Cluan Enda following heavy rains has become a frequent occurrence over the years, leading to some in the Dundalk housing estate renaming it Lagoon Enda, last week's flooding following Storm Chandra was the worst seen by some older people living there.

One of its newer residents, James McCartney, moved to Cluan Enda last November, so it was a new experience for him. “I'm only here about eight weeks, we only moved in at the end of November, so this is the first we've seen of it.

“Put it like this, I'm six foot one, and in the middle of the road outside my house, it was up to my knees, I'm not a small guy. I'd say it was about a foot and a half of water. It came up to the end of the garden.

“I'm from the local area, but I've never actually seen it that bad. A 4x4 or a bigger car, you could get out, or a van, but a lot of people don't have that. A lot of people moved their cars up onto the green and trudged through in wellies.”

“They'd be used to it, but they still have to do this. There's a lot of elderly people in this estate and someone could have missed a medical appointment.

Read also: People in Dundalk left in "very precarious scenarios" due to flooding Dáil hears

“I was chatting to a neighbour two doors down, she's not elderly but she's older than I am, I was asking her if she was alright, she was, “yeah, yeah”, she kind of laughed it off, “we're well used to this”.

“My neighbour, my direct neighbour is elderly, her kids were able to get in and out, so they had families coming in and out, but the family still had to face that flood.

“I was chatting to an elderly man, he was coming up to the shop, he was wearing fishing waders. He said he'd been here sixty years, and it was the worst he'd ever seen it. And more rain on the way, as well.”

Watching the waters rise was a worrying experience for James. “I'll be honest, I was at work and we have one of them doorbell cameras, and I was watching the water come up, and it was under the back wheels of the car in the driveway. I turned around at work and told them, 'look, I have to go home, and work from home, just in case this gets to crisis point, cos I really don't know what it's like'.”

James continued, “I have to say now, a couple of older people who were very relaxed towards it. It was kind of...they've seen all this before – the council haven't fixed it.

“What did your man call it, Lagoon Enda. I thought that was quite funny. They were quite relaxed towards the whole situation, they said it's never actually gone up to the houses. It's the furthest they've seen it go up the gardens but it's never gone up to the houses.

“Look I'm only here a few weeks so I was obviously a wee bit more stressed than they were!” He added however, “at the end of the day it shouldn't be happening.”

While he was thankful of the efforts and help provided by Cllr Robert Nash and Cllr Maeve Yore during the flooding, James was frustrated by what he called “inaction” from the local authority in dealing with infrastructural issues.

“They're like, 'there's a flood relief plan for 2030”. That's no good. It's all this bureaucracy, and 'we have plans to do this, and 'it's in consultation phase. At the end of the day, they couldn't turn on the storm pumps on the Coe's Road because [of the] the Blackwater [River].

“The storm pumps are operated by Irish Water. They pump into the Blackwater River, which is local to here. The Blackwater River is full of rubbish and the Council are well aware of this. They know the Blackwater is always dumped in and blocked.

“The water built up, not just here, not just in Cluan Enda, in Bay Estate as well. We're at the end of the lines. They couldn't turn on the storm pumps because the river was about to burst, and it ended up getting to a crisis point.”

It was Tuesday before any sandbags were delivered to Cluan Enda. “They (Louth County Council) were made aware of this storm at 2pm on Monday, maybe midday on Monday. So instead of actually getting sandbags and delivering them to the greens in Cluan Enda, or an access point in Bay Estate.

“These areas, they know flood. This is not new news. I had to push and push. [Cllr] Robbie Nash, he sorted it out, but we didn't get sand bags until 1pm on Tuesday. This is where it got infuriating. “The Council came down, sent two men down in two vans, and they come down and put up signs. “They put up a sign warning people of a flood, instead of coming down to give sand bags out to homeowners.”

James said that while they were informed by the Council that there were sand bags available from the Council yard, not everybody can get there. They said, 'well you can come and get your sandbags if you want', but sure my 80 year old neighbour, she's not going to drive to the council yard and load 50kg sandbags into the back of her car.”

While a fire engine called at one stage to pump water from the estate, it had to leave a time later, and a private company arrived.

“Credit to whoever that guy was that was driving for them”, said James, “he worked like a trojan. He had a tank, I think about a 10,000 litre tank, and he was filling it up, driving off, dumping the water out, come back, he was at that for hours. But he barely even made a dint.”

“Ultimately it's just frustrating, you hear the old people, 'ah yeah, this always happens', they're at a stage where they're actually apathetic towards it, 'aw the council have never helped'. It's actually sad that people are used to it. I can only praise Robbie [Nash] and Maeve [Yore].

“It's no good them (Louth County Council) saying we have a flood relief plan for 2030 or 2035, that's no good. They've known about it for long enough, they haven't done anything. It's frustrating, especially when you know it's (the rain) coming.”