NOVEMBER 18TH, 1916: A storm with up to hurricane winds killed two children and caused a lot of damage throughout the southern half of the country in November 1916. Among the worst affected areas were Cork and Waterford, from where these reports were sent.
ACCOMPANIED BY torrential rain, a storm has been sweeping over Cork for the past twenty-four hours, and up to 10a.m. yesterday the gale, which was from the south-east, blew with hurricane force. It caused enormous damage to property, and has been the worst storm experienced there for twenty years. To the west of the city the River Lee overflowed its banks to a depth in some places of six feet, and, sweeping with great force over the grazing lands which lie on either bank, carried away horses, cattle, and sheep, notwithstanding the efforts of the owners to save them. . .
University College football grounds were covered with four feet of water, and here a number of sheep are stated to have been lost. The caretaker's house was severely flooded. Indeed, the valley of the Lee extending westwards was one huge lake. The Cork and Muskerry Railway, which traverses this district, was inundated to a depth of several feet, and the train service had to be suspended yesterday. . .
Houses on the Mardyke Walk and Western road suffered flooding to the extent of from three to four feet. The Fitzgerald Park was also under water. The district of Blackpool, which is low-lying, was ravaged by the floods, which ran down some of the streets like a fair-sized river, and so bad was the flooding that bread van drivers had in places to deliver their bread on the top of poles into the upper windows of the flooded houses. On St. Patrick's Bridge and other bridges which span the north channel, hundreds of people stood watching the flood as it brought down dead cattle and tree trunks. The river steamer Roslellan, of Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway Co. was torn from its moorings at Merchant's quay. . . It afterwards ran aground lower down the river.
The great floods in Cork reached their climax at nine o'clock last night when the water rose to five feet in the vicinity of the courthouse and to four and five feet in the western and northern districts. The river presented a wonderful spectacle as the enormous volume of water surged down, with waves seven feet high and the torrent breaking itself against the houses on either bank of the river. People gathered on the bridges were perturbed to see a sealed coffin with a breastplate tossed about in the torrent, and a Cork undertaker gave it as his opinion that it had been washed out of the Inniscarra graveyard.
From an early hour on Thursday evening a fierce gale raged over Waterford City. During Thursday night the storm was accompanied by heavy rain, and in the morning, there was on every side evidence of the havoc caused, the streets being strewn with the fragments of slates and débris. Yesterday morning at the Quay, shortly after 8 o'clock, two children (boys) of Mr. Sheridan, motor and cycle mechanic, were killed in their bed by the roof falling on them. It appears that the gable of the adjoining house, in the occupation of Mr. Meredith, dentist, fell on to the roof of Mr. Sheridan's house, carrying it down, together with a portion of the front wall.
The other occupants of Mr. Sheridan's house were his wife, two other children, a chauffeur named Hayes, and the housemaid. Some quay labourers and Fireman Lonergan came on the scene, and rushed in at great personal risk to find the two children in the débris on the ground floor. One was dead, and the other, who was then alive and calling for his father, expired almost immediately.
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