Flooding in Tyrone and Donegal causes 'catastrophic damage'

Flooding in counties Tyrone and Donegal has caused “catastrophic damage” to homes and businesses, a local resident has said.

“Everything you save up over the years… it just gets washed away,” said Dale Hyndman from Raphoe, County Donegal.

Several homes in Castlederg, County Tyrone, also were damaged by flooding on Saturday night.

A DUP councillor said he has never seen conditions so poor in the town.

Keith Kerrigan said he knew of a number of homes that had water damage.

It came after heavy rain hit the west of Northern Ireland and parts of County Donegal.

Motorists were warned to take extra care on the roads on Sunday morning due to high levels of surface water in many parts of Northern Ireland.

Mr Kerrigan said: “I know there’s a number going out the Cavan Road of Castlederg sort of in a low [lying] area in a housing estate that have water damage.

“I know of other areas outside of town where water was at the back door of a number of properties, but people were able to stop the water getting in with the use of sandbags.

“There was some amount of sandbags put out at Silverdale Nursing Home but some water did get into the home, but thankfully not too bad.”

by BBC News NI weather presenter Angie Phillips

As a whole for Northern Ireland, the current July rainfall is 103.5mm, against the average of 83.69mm.

At Castlederg, they had their second wettest 24 hours on record between 09:00 on Saturday 22 July to 09:00 on Sunday 23 July at 72.6mm.

The wettest 24-hour period 14 to 15 August 1970 when 75.3mm fell.

After the wet weekend, which saw localised flooding in places due to the persistence of the rain, it turns a bit drier for the start of the week, with just a few showers around on Monday and Tuesday.

However, we are not done with the changeable and unsettled pattern.

A wet and windy spell will follow, probably during the second half of Wednesday.

Tuesday will perhaps be not as wet, but Friday and next weekend will see another area of low pressure moving in which could bring heavy, prolonged and possibly thundery downpours at times.

Although a number of roads were closed in Castlederg on Saturday night, Mr Kerrigan said water levels were down on Sunday and he understood all roads had reopened.

However, he said if the same level of rain falls on Sunday conditions could quickly deteriorate again.

“There were roads and conditions that I’ve never seen so poor,” he said.

“But I would like to pay credit to all of the people last night – the fire service who were out to late last night; to the individuals who were out helping out, carrying sandbags to neighbours; the PSNI were there; there was a massive amount of work put in.

“The amount of farmers who were in the town with tankers and tractors to try to take the pressure off and try to get water removed.

“Sandbags did run out at one stage and I had private messages sent to me: ‘I’ve got sand, if you need sand we can get sand, if you need bags, we’ll get stuff bagged up.'”

On Sunday morning, the Department for Infrastructure’s Traffic Watch site said: “Due to heavy overnight rain many roads have surface flooding with difficult driving conditions.

“Please slow down and drive with care. Especially on high speed roads.”

It said the following roads are closed due to flooding:

• Ballyness Road (County Tyrone): Shantonagh Road to Murley Road
• Carn road (County Tyrone): is closed from Ledsherry road to Slievebane road due to flooding

There were also reports of fallen trees on Upper Dunmurry Lane in Belfast and Glenariffe Road Glenariff Forest Park in County Antrim.

The Main Street in Lack, County Fermanagh, was also hit by flooding and closed overnight before reopening again on Sunday.

In Raphoe, near the Northern Ireland border at County Tyrone, heavy rain on Saturday night meant a Sunday clean-up for many residents.

Businesses in Raphoe were badly affected, including Leonard Stewart’s barber shop.

“Everyone is pulling together as a community to try to help each other out,” he said.

“So many businesses have been affected from this flood and it’s not the first time this has happened.”

Mr Leonard said he considers himself lucky compared to neighbouring homes and businesses which have been damaged “much more severely”.

Dale Hyndman, who lives in the town, said the damage was catastrophic.

“The amount of money it takes, and time, to fix up something just when it’s you doing it yourself,” he said.

by Kelly Bonner, in Raphoe for BBC Newsline

The clean-up operation is well and truly under way here.

For resident Dale Hyndman, the flooding was “devastating for the little town of Raphoe, businesses here have a hard enough time without this happening to them”.

One of those badly affected businesses was Leonard Stewart’s barber shop – he spent much of the day trying to salvage what he can.

He also commended a community pulling together to help each other out during a period of flooding – and not for the first time.

Mr Hyndman added: “You have the tools, everything that you’ve saved up since the last time this happened, the exact same thing, and nothing’s ever been done.”

He said Raphoe has been flooding “since before I was born”.

“There’s multiple businesses there sweeping up and trying to clean out today.

“It’s an engineering problem that needs to be done with the town, there was plenty of people here to help last night but it’s too late by the time the water comes.”

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