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A CO ROSCOMMON family are still unable to access their home over four months after the floods began, due to the road up to it being under 4ft of water
Caroline Collins has lived for years with her three daughters (aged 18, 16 and 11) in Castleplunkett Co Roscommon, a small village located close to Castlerea and near the River Shannon.
She had to leave her home in late-December, after heavy rains brought about by a succession of storms resulted in the entire area being flooded.
Caroline has not been able to return to live in her home since, and has been staying with nearby family.
The road to her home is still under at least 4ft of water, due to serious drainage issues in the area.
“We’ve been out of our house since the end of December,” Caroline told TheJournal.ie.
“It was really unprecedented, this flood. We never imagined that it would actually rise as high as 6ft at one stage.”
It has never happened in history before. It’s totally unprecedented.
Caroline has been only been able to access her home via boat, with help from the Roscommon Civil Defence, to collect her belongings.
She hasn’t been back there in 5 weeks.
While the water level is decreasing slowly, it’s likely that she won’t be able to move back into her home until at least June.
“It’s been very tough, we’re all finding it very stressful,” said Caroline.
The future
Assuming the water level goes down and Caroline and her family can return to their home (which has managed to avoid being damaged), they will immediately need to start working on how they can prevent the same problem from happening again.
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Paschal Fitzmaurice, who has been assisting the family, told TheJournal.ie that there wasn’t much that the council could do to get rid of the water.
“There’s really not much the council can do,” Fitzmaurice said.
“We looked at drilling a water well to see if that would make a difference, but it’s not looking good.
That’s the stage where we’re at now – it’s a very serious issue.
Castleplunkett is located in what’s known as a Turlough – a sort of seasonal lake.
Turloughs are areas of limestone, typically found to the west of the Shannon. In winter generally they flood heavily, becoming lakes, only to drain again at another time.
These areas flood significantly in heavy rain – and this is what happened in Castleplunket.
Fitzmaurice said that the pressure built up below the road due to the heavy rains.
That pressure has yet to relieve, and because of this the water levels are only declining very slowly.
“There’s not much the council can actually do,” he said.
Until the water levels decline, Fitzmaurice says that they won’t be able to examine the cause of the problem.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, John Mockler, Roscommon Municipal District Coordinator for Roscommon County Council, confirmed what Fitzmaurice had said.
“There are a few possible scenarios as to why the water in the Turlough (Seasonal Lake) is not getting away,” said Mockler,
There are several sink holes located within the lake and until such time as the water recedes it will not be possible to complete an accurate conceptual model as to what caused the lake to rise so high.
This area has many karst (limestone) features in the area and is vulnerable to groundwater flow. Groundwater flow in limestone is harder to manipulate as opposed to surface water flow in rivers and streams.
Mockler said that the sheer volume of the water is stopping the council from doing any work on fixing the problem. Until the water level goes down, there is nothing that can be done.
“The sheer volume of water in the lake is prohibiting Roscommon County Council from doing effective works on the roads in this area,” he said.
Roscommon County Council was allocated €4.5 million to help fix the roads that were damaged in the flooding. It is unclear how much of that money will go to fixing the problems at Castleplunket.
Until the water goes down, Mockler said there is no way to determine what needs to be done to stop the build up happening again.
For Caroline, the long wait has been tough.
I’ll be moving [home] the minute I can have access into it,” she said.
But then the work will have to start to stop it from happening again.
Definitely time the banks update their systems. This is getting way too common. The fees have gone up, start using them to provide a service!
Most of the banks systems are ok. It’s just ulster bank who’s systems are outdated but will cost millions to update
Karl
Did you not hear of the Bank of Ireland problems?
THIS! Most banks still use mainframes for a lot of their nightly transactions. They need to rebuild!
Its Ulcer bank at this stage for its customers…
Perhaps if they try to FIX the problem rather than FOX it
as in your headline,the customers will be happier!
Thanks for pointing that out :) I’ve FIXED it now.
You FOX Michelle and your fixing !
Continually having computer problems, yet continually increasing fees. Left them a year ago, terrible bank to deal with.
Couldn’t have had a different experience with them myseflf. There was an issue about a year ago that was an inconvenience but I’ve never had another issue with them and always found their staff so helpful with everything. Mobile banking is down at the moment but you can still log on through normal means as well as using the full website through your mobile device. Very minor inconvenience unless you want to be offended by it.
Never took offence to them, just got fed up paying through the nose for a service they couldn’t supply. You obviously weren’t affected when their computer systems went belly up for weeks, direct debits were being taken out twice, wages not going in etc. a joke of a bank.
Yes I lost track of how much was in my account for a few days but it got sorted and they reimbursed me for two transactions that hadn’t happened! I pay no fees at all for my banking thankfully and they have branches open on a Saturday! Like I said some people go out of their way to be upset!
Ulster bank is one of the better banks surprisingly enough. They were the last to raise their fees and they’ve a good rep for business banking.
Had to leave AIB after 12 years with them – so rude and their fees were rocketing.
Believe me Ted I haven’t got time to go out of my way and get upset with a bank. Way to busy to be checking accounts all the time in case they’ve made more mistakes. That’s why they lost me and hundreds of other customers over the last year or two. I guess some people put up with bad service and some don’t. Like I said, a joke of a bank.
Thank god I’m not one of their 600 customers
Well I am a customer and I’m praying to Joe Pesci that they get it sorted soon
Call those 2 Canadian kids to sort it out.
I remember the good old days when banks used to at least pretend that they were looking after their customers,
when mobile banking was a lorry with a teller in the back.
I’m off to the credit union thanks.
No fee internet banking, direct debit, cash card facilities
run by volunteers who don’t cost us €100 billion every 20 years or so.
Feckin’ shower of bankers…!
HACKERS !
All those screenshots are from UK customers (Ulster bank in NI, RBS in UK).
Is there any proof of ROI customers affected?
NI is part of the UK. RBS in GB.
Meant to say that!
Thank god I left them after the last major F up. Their I.T section is absolutely useless
Working now – first thing I notice is the direct debits have been taken. Back to normal, or what passes for it in a nationalised bank.
Ulster Bank couldn’t find their arse with both hands and a map !
Ulster Bank still use pen and paper. I rang today told by them my loan was with collections because it was in arrears. I said it couldn’t be and it’s most likely in credit. On hold for 36 mins while some eejit worked it out manually. At the end and after telling me 3 iMessage that I was in arrears the first eejit tells me I’m in credit and my account has been removed from arrears. They are a joke of a bank and shouldn’t even be in business.
Can they please change their debit cards. Such bad quality.
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