Clongriffin, Co Dublin, residents encountered submerged cars, stairways and power cuts this morning after flooding affected the lower areas of their apartment buildings.
Met Éireann issued a status-yellow rain warning for Dublin and Wicklow at 2:37am on Friday, warning of potential flooding and difficult travel conditions. Many of those living beside Father Collins Park believe their apartment blocks were unprepared for the conditions.
“My car is completely destroyed,” says Laura Fitzgerald. “I was woken up at one o’clock this morning by extreme banging on my door. The first thing I did was grab my phone to ring 999 because I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
A neighbour was phoning Fitzgerald, and met her at the door with news that her car was submerged. They made their way to the basement of the building, where the water was up to Fitzgerald’s waist.
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“[My car] is the only thing that I own ... but the water was up past the dashboard. There’s absolutely nothing working in it.”
Fitzgerald is a single mother of three children: a two-year-old, a three-year-old and a nine-year-old who has autism. She grew up in State care and does not have an extended family upon whom to rely. “Me and my kids have only each other as family,” she says.
“We didn’t know where to turn. We’re left here. We pay very high rent to live here. I have an ESG [exceptional social grounds] application in with Dublin City Council. I can’t afford my rent ... it goes up every single year. I’ve tried absolutely everything.
“I’m not in a position to work right now as I’m studying. We’re paying such high rent; I’m already struggling to live here and now the only thing that I own [is gone].”
A number of the affected apartment blocks in Clondalkin are operated by Vesta, a digital rental provider managed by property company Twinlite. Vesta issued an update to residents on Friday morning, alerting them that Uisce Éireann were on site helping to drain water.
The company acknowledged power cuts were still affecting some residents and said efforts were being made to restore it and internet service. They encouraged anyone affected to take photographs of their vehicles to document any damage.
In recent weeks, Fitzgerald says the car park suffered another bout of flooding as a result of Storm Chandra. It was less severe than on this occasion, but the management company still had to call on services to drain the facility.
“They obviously knew that there was an issue,” she says. “How was this level of damage able to expand in such a short period of time? It’s mind-blowing ... we’ve all fallen victim to it.”
Jonathan Gauntlett lives in the Collins building, part of the Vesta complex, with his partner Jennie and their son. He was alerted to flooding at 11.30pm on Thursday night, and although the exit to the car park had already been blocked by the water, he managed to move his car to a higher level.
“Everyone in the apartment block is certainly affected by this,” he says. “The electricity is not working in the apartments and we don’t know when it’s going to come back on again. Uisce Éireann is here pumping water out, but we don’t know how long it’s going to take to be able to go in and see our cars and see how much damage has actually happened.”
Gauntlett has lived in the Collins building for five years, and three or four years ago, he says, the basement suffered a similar flooding event. “I think there’s a wider problem in this whole development area that hasn’t been addressed at [the] development stage, in terms of flood risk and attenuation or management of flood risk along the river here.”
Lee, who did not want to share his surname, is a resident of another Clongriffin apartment block. Living on the second floor of his building, he can only access the levels above him due to a submerged stairway.
“I’m after missing out on a day’s work, probably a couple of days’ work. I have an autistic child; I can’t bring her to school. I can’t even leave my house. I can’t even leave the front door because of where the flooding is – it’s up to my door,” he says.
“I’m up since nine o’clock this morning, pushing people out, trying to push cars out. I got my girlfriend’s car out, but I couldn’t get my own car out.”
His own car is destroyed. Lee has been left frustrated by the lack of any sort of flooding or evacuation plan for a problem that has arisen previously.
“It’s not cheap. You pay rent here, €2,600 a month in some of the apartments. That’s what I pay myself. For that money, you want problems sorted. This happened two weeks ago as well, and it wasn’t as bad, but they never put any preventive measures in place to stop it from happening.”
The one positive is the community effort on Friday. Lee says some residents, especially the elderly, are in particularly vulnerable positions. They have worked together to handle the situation.
“The residents have been very, very good,” he says. “We’re all teaming up ... so that’s great to see.”
Vesta said: “The safety and wellbeing of our residents is our absolute priority. Our teams were on site throughout the night and remain there today, working alongside specialist contractors to clear water from the affected basements and restore normal service as quickly as possible.
“The flooding occurred with extreme speed. While we have maintained emergency pumps on site for several weeks as a precaution against recent heavy rainfall, the sheer volume of water that entered the building last night surpassed what any on-site pumping system could reasonably manage.
“Preliminary observations suggest the flooding originated from overwhelmed public drainage systems in the local road network. These systems fall under the jurisdiction of Uisce Éireann and Dublin City Council. We can confirm that all internal drainage systems for the buildings were fully approved by both authorities at the design and planning stages.”
