Eleanor exposes Council’s amateurish storm ‘prep’

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Storm Eleanor was like a game of two halves – in which Galway City Council failed to turn up for the first. The Council staff excelled late on Tuesday night for the clean-up, and early on Wednesday morning, in preparation for the second surge, when high tides were expected again.

But the local authority failed miserably to prepare the public for the initial flash flooding that wreaked so much damage in the city centre, The West, Claddagh and Salthill.

By tea-time on Tuesday, during the evening rush hour traffic, water gushed out of Galway Docks and flooded the entire area stretching from Dock Street all through Quay Street, Merchants Road, Flood Street, Spanish Parade, Fr Griffin Road, Fairhill Road Lower, Dominick Street, Wolfe Tone Bridge, Claddagh Quay, Grattan Road, and elsewhere.

It happened so suddenly, and a combination of unfortunate events – high tide, wind direction, heavy rain, etcetera – all came at once, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Council couldn’t have done anything in advance.

Nonsense.

Yes, it was very sudden and the conditions created the perfect storm, but Eleanor exposed the Council as a bunch of amateurs, who underestimated Mother Nature.

And not for the first time – the Council has form on the ‘failing to prepare for storms’ front. It’s not that they were ill-prepared, it’s that they didn’t prepare at all. No matter how “unprecedented” the flooding was, it still doesn’t excuse the Council’s reactive rather than proactive attitude.

True, an ‘orange’ weather warning was issued for Galway on the morning of the storm but the City Council in its statement said, “. . . no serious flooding is expected . . .” before urging the public to be vigilant. NO SERIOUS FLOODING IS EXPECTED. Are you having a laugh?

There were no Council staff on the ground, monitoring the situation, and by the time they reacted, it was too late: Galway was submerged.
They didn’t get sandbags out until after the flood, and that was only after taking a pasting on social media. Impassable roads remained open to traffic. Gullies uncleaned for years made matters worse.

The confusion caused by the Council’s initial statement also compounded the situation. It said: “Met Éireann have issued an Oranmore weather warning for this evening”.

This was soon corrected to an “Orange” weather warning rather than Oranmore but it gave the impression the weather warning was localised to Oranmore. Then there were national weather warnings mentioning South Galway, which for locals means Gort and its hinterland not the city. More confusion.

Again, the Council’s complete unpreparedness meant businesses were taken unawares. Meanwhile, the Army – which must be requested to intervene – was twiddling its thumbs awaiting a call for help. By the time they got it, the damage was done. You couldn’t make it up. And instead of taking responsibility, and apologising, all we get is spoofery.

Weather warning – a day late!

Not only were businesses kept in the dark over the impending floods, so too were city councillors. It wasn’t until Peter Keane (FF) went onto RTÉ Radio One Drivetime, shortly before 7pm Tuesday, to criticise the executive’s response, did fellow Councillors start to get updates from the Council, which they relayed to the public via social media.

They issued a tweet warning motorists to stay away from the Docks long after the road should have been closed by Gardaí or the Council.

One Galway City councillor, Pádraig Conneely (FG), does not have email, and doesn’t use social media, and so Tuesday’s weather warning was posted to him by the Council. The letter arrived on Wednesday at 3pm – 22 hours after the worst flooding had occurred.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.