‘You can never stop this water’

Washed-out resident demands greater flood prevention

An irate resident in a Cavan Town housing estate is querying how houses were allowed to be built in an area prone to flooding and is demanding urgent measures to address the problem.

Six homes in Cavan Town experienced extensive flooding following the heavy spell of rain in recent weeks.

Mohammad Baracha lives in The Maples housing estate where a number of families descended their stairs last week to find the ground floor of their homes completely flooded.

Water had risen past their skirting boards leaving everything from sofas to televisions, five inches underwater.

It has just started raining again the morning the Celt arrived at the scene. A puddle immediately began to appear on the road, which is positioned higher than the houses. This causes a steady stream of water to cascade down into the driveway of the Baracha household, which quickly fills up. Before long, all of the cars are parked in a large puddle of water.

Sandbags lined the entrances to each house, including that of Mohammad Baracha, who appears extremely frustrated by the situation.

“After the rain stopped on the second night, all night it rained and at four o'clock when we woke up the house was full,” says Mohammad.

“It was full to here,” he says, pointing to an area on his wall above the skirting boards. “This is the second time this happened. The first time the floor was wet but the water left. Second time it was bad. Every house, all six houses have the same thing.

“They give us sandbags but you can never stop this water, there’s too much pressure. This is then a waterfall here.”

As Mohammad continued with his story, his young daughter appeared with his neighbour on the phone. “That is my neighbour. She’s telling me to move my car because it will flood again. Our cars are full of water.”

Mohammad then moves towards the window and looks on as a shower of rain fills up his driveway once again.

Council staff were working to resolve the issue and alleviate the build-up.

Mohammad claims, while staff have done some work, more measures are needed.

He contends that a council engineer informed him, after multiple phone calls, that there was no issue.

“So I say 'if there is no issue, I would not ring you!'”

Frustrated by his struggle to seek a solution, Mohammad says, “how would you feel? If it was your own house and you live with your kids, how would you feel when you see the flooding? One of my kids say 'papa why is our house under the water?' This is a big question for me.”

The concerned father queries whether the site was suitable for building houses at all.

“If this place is not okay for the house, why did the council give the permission? How did they build it like that? If the road is up and houses are down, in Ireland especially, it always rains!”

“This is the first time. Before this people told us, maybe seven years ago, it happened like that.”

Council investigating

Responding to the issues in The Maples estate, a spokesperson for Cavan County Council said, “following recent flash flooding incidents affecting six houses in the Gortnakesh area, Cavan-Belturbet Municipal District staff have maintained contact with residents and have implemented temporary mitigation measures at the site. The MD team will investigate further preventative measures following a full assessment of the affected area.”