In Cork, all main roads were passable yesterday, despite extensive flooding over the past few days. But the Garda and the Automobile Association continue to stress that secondary roads were still treacherous due to fallen trees and pockets of water.
The association said drivers should use extreme caution on the main roads and urged that in the dark November evenings, anyone making a journey should be particularly vigilant. The advice was, where possible, to stay away from secondary roads.
Mallow, Midleton, Fermoy and Mitchelstown were particularly badly hit as the south took the brunt of the gale and its unseasonally high rainfall.
Up until yesterday a flood alert was still in place on the 100-mile long valley of the Munster Blackwater.
It was estimated that almost 4 ins of rain had been deposited in parts of the province ranging from east Kerry to west Waterford in three days.
Like Clonmel, Mallow is prone to annual flooding but by yesterday, the flood water in the town had begun to abate and there was some optimism that if the storms die down, things could return to normal.
The AA Roadwatch service also said that in Fermoy, Midleton and Mitchelstown, there had been an improvement throughout yesterday.
The improvement, however, did not mask the fact that some thousands of acres of agricultural land were swamped as the depression deepened and the rain cascaded down. Farmers were forced to move cattle to higher ground, while at the same time, widespread road diversions had to be put in place.
The local authorities in Mallow supplied sandbags to business premises in vulnerable parts of the town such as Bridge Street, but this did not prevent water damage to a number of business premises.
At one point, the Town Park road in the town was under almost 4 ft of water.
The ferocity of the gale also caused the derailment of the Tralee-Dublin train last Tuesday when an embankment caved in. In Youghal, low-lying housing estates in the Glanmire area of Cork, and Kanturk to the north of the county, water damage was also reported as the clean-up operation continued yesterday.
In Cork city, the Lee Road was still heavily flooded last evening but all main routes were able to take traffic once adequate care was used.