Residents deploy sandbags as flooding threatens homes

RESIDENTS living at Letterkenny’s Ballymacool area say it is only a matter of time before their homes are badly damaged by flooding.
A prolonged downpour on Tuesday night caused water to build up dangerously close to front doors along Charlie Daly Terrace and nearby Swilly View Terrace.
People living there say the threat of flooding has become more and more frequent and that something needs to be done urgently.
JJ McCormack lives along Swilly View Terrace with his wife and two young children.
Even though they deployed sandbags on Tuesday evening, some water still managed to get in through their back door.
Mr McCormack said, “The water is coming down Glencar, down the back road to here. It’s every few weeks, any time that it rains, this is happening.
“It was about three weeks ago that we had something similar. I’ve two young children, a two-year-old and a 12-week-old and you do worry about them. Luckily it’s only water and not sewerage but it’s still not nice.”
Letterkenny Councillor Jimmy Kavanagh says he has received complaints from residents who live in the area.
He has already raised the issues with Donegal County Council and vowed yesterday to raise them again.
Councillor Kavanagh said, “Donegal County Council is aware of the problem and it will be followed up with our engineers and with Irish Water again because we need to find a permanent solution to this.
“Residents can’t be expected to put up with this several times a year.”
When spoken to yesterday Irish Water said it had followed the matter up with Donegal County Council but found nothing wrong on its part.
“We can confirm there are no issues with any Irish Water assets in the local area,” said a spokesperson.
“The flooding could be due to the intense rainfall in Letterkenny on Tuesday night resulting in the storm water sewer not being able to carry the intense rainfall volume of water that fell over a short period.”

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