This was the situation this week for a family living in Inchapallas just off the Fermoy to Glanworth road. As our dramatic pictures show, floodwater - six foot deep in places - left the Fitzgerald family cut off.

A lorry carrying a load of feed was stranded in the deep water. Its driver had to climb from the cab and crawl along a wall to a point in the road where he was rescued by a local farmer with his tractor.

"We've been living here for 14 years and it's the worst I've ever seen. Some neighbours have told us they've never seen it as bad in forty years," Majella Fitzgerald told The Avondhu.

Access is the big worry for Majella, who suffers from MS. She's concerned that if she did need medical attention, no vehicle, emergency services or otherwise, would be able to reach her house. Until the weekend, they'd been able to get out further up the road on the far side of the floodwater by going through fields but that is now also flooded.

The water has formed a lake in the field across the road from the Fitzgerald house. Up to the weekend the water on the road was bad enough, but since Saturday, Majella says, it's been steadily rising and it's now coming up their driveway. It has already surrounded the house next door, a bungalow belonging to Woodfort Stud. Majella is worried that, if something isn't done, her house will be flooded.

The council was out to survey the situation on Friday last. Area engineer Brendan O'Gorman told The Avondhu on Tuesday that there was, unfortunately, nothing they could do. "The water table is at saturation level. There's nowhere for it to go," he explained. They just have to leave it subside, he said. The council closed off the road from the Glanworth road side. He said the road was passable from the other end but acknowledged that there was floodwater along a stretch there too.

A neighbour of the Fitzgeralds said a spring on the road used to cause water to flow out and previous generations taked about a similar flood but there'd been nothing in decades like the depth of the water currently lying there.

Majella says their neighbours have been brilliant, ferrying them up and down the road until Friday in jeeps and tractors and bringing them gas bottles when the electricity was off last week and other supplies until it got so bad even they wouldn't risk going through it.

The recovery team who arrived to rescue the stranded truck on Monday were unable to do so, due to the depth of the water. They left after disconnecting the battery, leaving the water to recede before trying again.

Majella was stoic and good humoured about her family's situation when The Avondhu visited on Monday. Also visiting to survey her situation and offer help was her friend Mary Lonergan from the Fermoy branch of MS.

Wearing a pair of hip waders, Majella was wading in and out of floodwater several feet deep to access her house through her neighbour's flooded garden and adjoining fields. She understood there was little the county council could do for them. She said she was anxious about the situation and hoped it would improve soon.

blog comments powered by Disqus