Pedestrians ‘would have needed a boat’

Date Published: 12-Aug-2008

GALWAY city could suffer serious flooding – like that which struck Dublin at the weekend, delaying motorists travelling to Galway from Croke Park by hours on Saturday evening and similar to the freak flooding that caused untold damage in Cork and Limerick 10 days earlier – if the city’s gullies are not maintained, the Mayor of Galway has warned.

Although it’s the middle of August, Mayor Pádraig Conneely yesterday said pedestrians would have “needed a boat” to make their way down the city’s main streets to avoid getting drenched and he called on Galway City Council to conduct an audit of all street gullies.

And one Shantalla resident, Annemarie Bermingham of Davis Road, told the Sentinel yesterday she had difficulty getting into her home because of flooding after the heavy downpours of rain. And it’s not the first time.

“The neighbours on the street have told me the flooding has happened for the last 40 years. I’m living here for 13 years and it happens several times a year that we’d have to ring the Council or the Fire Brigade to get rid of the water.

“There was one day when we couldn’t get out of the house for two days. The other evening I went to Dunnes and there was heavy rainfall and I’d to take off my shoes and…