On the 24th of last month, Dublin experienced well over a months worth of rain in that one day. 82mm of rainfall hit the Greater Dublin area alone, bringing the monthly total to a record number for October, with Dublin Airport valuing levels at 169.5mm. Throughout the country, tens of millions of Euro worth of damage was caused by the tremendous outpour on that Monday.
Businesses and households alike suffered immense damage
from flooding. Water damage cost one family from Pearse Street in Dublin‘s city
centre €4,500 on flooring alone without even considering the rest of the house.
A woman from the same street, at 77 years old, claimed to have never seen
flooding that bad despite living in the same house since the 1960’s. Many
parts of Dublin city centre experienced extreme flooding, including Inchicore
and Dundrum.
On the day of the deluge, video-sharing website Youtube
encountered its own flood in the form of the footage of Dundrum Shopping Centre
while a 7-ft wall of collected rain-water burst through the buildings doors and
windows and surged through the centre after the river Dodder burst its banks in
the Pembroke District. Shop furnishings, stock and the floor and wall coverings
were destroyed by the gushing water,
costing thousands. One restaurant owner had to face a loss of over €20,000 from
lost revenue and ruined stock. Apart from Tesco, which had a generator, and
shops in the south area that were largely unaffected, power had been cut
throughout Dundrum Shopping Centre by the floods and was restored shop-by-shop
by the ESB.
Full details on costs for the damage are still not known,
but insurance prices are expected to soar as claims began to come in from the
day after the floods occurred. This will effect not only those living on flood
plains, but in fact all policy holders. However, without question the biggest
tragedy to Ireland due to the floods came as the bodies of 25 year old Garda,
Ciarán Jones, and 35 year old hospice worker, Celia de Jesus, were found. Jones
had been swept into the Liffey on Monday evening, his body found the next
morning. Celia drowned in her flooded basement home in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.
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