Storm Elsa takes city by surprise

MET Éireann has borne the brunt of the ire in the aftermath of the damage caused by Storm Elsa on Wednesday that flooded a number of premises and left an estimated 50 vehicles stranded in three car-parks.

The City Council and a number of city councillors have said that the status orange warning issued by Met Éireann only came at 8pm on Wednesday night for a wind event that was already in full swing.

Former Mayor of Galway, Cllr Niall McNelis, said ‘there just had to be a better warning system in place’ than the one that applied on Wednesday night, leading to so many people being caught unawares.

“The Met Éireann orange weather warning was only issued at 8pm and only applied from 9pm – by the time the warning had come into place, the storm had hit us,” said Cllr McNelis.

He stressed that he wasn’t blaming the City Council for the lack of ‘notice’ as they essentially relied on Met Éireann’s early-warning system to prepare for major weather events.

“In fact, I want to commend the efforts of all of the emergency services – the City Council crews, the Fire Brigade, Gardaí, Civil Defence and indeed the private contractors – for their prompt response to what was happening.

“But really, there was no proper advance notice of the severity of this weather event. We just all had to rally around and thankfully we got through it but there was one very hectic hour from around 9pm to 10pm,” said Cllr McNelis.

He added that he and other business people in the vulnerable Spanish Arch/Flood Street area had rallied around to keep their premises intact.

“I do want to get the message out there loud and clear, that as and from Thursday (yesterday) morning, it was business as usual in all the city’s retail areas. This was a short-lived storm and everything is back to normal,” said Cllr McNelis.

However, he said that one section of the storm dam in the Spanish Arch area had not been fully functional.

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

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