Flood Response

BizPost

Does Dublin seem to fall apart when it comes to organisation in responding to fllooding.

Traffic Control
There was more than the guards needed to warn and divert traffic. Why weren't the army mobilised? As cars were pulled out of flooded roads others just drove straight in.

Rescue
Apparently there are only a dozen drysuits in all of Dublin Fire Brigade across a couple of Fire Engines. They need to be able to deal with sort of stuff a lot quicker and not leave people trapped in cars waiting for an hour to be rescued. Where were'nt some of the lifeboat people called out as they were in the UK last year?

CO19

This is Ireland,we're never prepared for anything

Elessar

The civil defence were called in to help pump water with their extra fire engines. Don't think there was a need for the army, it was only one day and by the time the got in positions it would be all over. Floods are receeding now.

CSU

I have invented an enzyme that quickly turns flood water into Guinness!:D

CO19

CSU wrote: »

I have invented an enzyme that quickly turns flood water into Guinness!:D

Excellent you're goin to be a rich man so

BizPost

Elessar wrote: »

The civil defence were called in to help pump water with their extra fire engines. Don't think there was a need for the army, it was only one day and by the time the got in positions it would be all over. Floods are receeding now.

How long does it take to people into place? Surely within an hour you could have somebody be it Civil Defence or Army placed at a junction where's there's 4 foot of water to divert traffic and stop unneccessary damage and people being put at risk.

Agree thankfully it was short lived but still over six hours the same roads were filling up cars, people getting out walking through rivers to get out.

Just seems we're never as prepared and co-ordinated as we should be for these things.

Fyr.Fytr

Where were CD elessar?

Elessar

All I heard was a fire/ambo crew telling control that the CD were not needed for this particular call because it was a trauma. Didn't say where.

BizPost

Its hard to know who does what when these things happen. You have a heap of different units that all could help the situation if they were used and co-ordinated right - Guards/ Fire Brigade/ Health Board/ City Council/ Civil Defence/ Volunteer Ambulances/ Lifeboats/ Army/ Met Eireann/ Media.

A lot of volunteers units are local based and am sure could help with local knowledge and providing transport etc.

I bet there's never been a training exercise between these units even though this happened five years ago in Drumcondra, seven years ago in Ringsend and its the same story repeated.

The Guards I assume key area is Traffic and they'll never have enough resources for this and probably dont' have proper gear for wading through water. You need proper gear for these conditions.

What you also need is for someone to quickly tell the difference between a heavy shower of rain and flood alerts like yesterday.

Bartronilic

BOTH places where I got hydrolocked there was nobody there to warn me except other hydrolocked people. Even near lucan the second time it happened to me a van crashed and both cars drove off as there was no point waiting. Was sad aswell to see ambulances and fire engines stuck in traffic.

CLADA

While trying to get an elderly lady and her young grandson to dry land yesterday was approached by a young man who demanded to know why I didn't stop him driving his VW polo into 3 feet of flood water.:mad:

metman

CLADA wrote: »

While trying to get an elderly lady and her young grandson to dry land yesterday was approached by a young man who demanded to know why I didn't stop him driving his VW polo into 3 feet of flood water.:mad:

Surely you should have dropped the old lady in order to prevent the lad's Polo getting wet?! Have ye nothing better to be doing than helping elderly people in an emergency :rolleyes:

CLADA

metman wrote: »

Surely you should have dropped the old lady in order to prevent the lad's Polo getting wet?! Have ye nothing better to be doing than helping elderly people in an emergency :rolleyes:

Ahem..where exactly did I mention I was carrying her:D

civdef

http://www.mem.ie/memdocuments/a%20protocol%20for%20multi-agency%20response%20to%20flood%20emergencies.pdf

Doesn't officially take effect till 30 Sept, but most of what's described is already in place.

metman

CLADA wrote: »

Ahem..where exactly did I mention I was carrying her:D

Then you have absolutely no excuse for failing to dive in front of the Polo

metman

civdef wrote: »

http://www.mem.ie/memdocuments/a%20protocol%20for%20multi-agency%20response%20to%20flood%20emergencies.pdf

Doesn't officially take effect till 30 Sept, but most of what's described is already in place.

Cheers for that. I was wondering if any preparatory plans were in place or indeed if joint service exercises were run/planned. They make all the difference when it comes to senior managers getting it right on the day.

Paulzx

BizPost wrote: »

Does Dublin seem to fall apart when it comes to organisation in responding to fllooding.

Traffic Control
There was more than the guards needed to warn and divert traffic.Why weren't the army mobilised? As cars were pulled out of flooded roads others just drove straight in.

Rescue
Apparently there are only a dozen drysuits in all of Dublin Fire Brigade across a couple of Fire Engines. They need to be able to deal with sort of stuff a lot quicker and not leave people trapped in cars waiting for an hour to be rescued. Where were'nt some of the lifeboat people called out as they were in the UK last year?

I'll try and address some of your points. I'm not speaking for any agencies but will give my opinions as a dfb firefighter.

"Why weren't the army mobilised? "

For what?. What were they going to do yesterday. Most of the flooding was on main roadways causing major traffic problems. It was not flooding invloving large amounts of housing which would have involved large evacuations. When Drumcondra flooded a few years back a lot of people had to be evacuated and Army trucks were quite rightly used.

"As cars were pulled out of flooded roads others just drove straight in."

That is down to the stupidity of the individual drivers. Surely if you see cars stuck in floods it might enter your mind not to drive in.

"Apparently there are only a dozen drysuits in all of Dublin Fire Brigade across a couple of Fire Engines. They need to be able to deal with sort of stuff a lot quicker and not leave people trapped in cars waiting for an hour to be rescued. Where were'nt some of the lifeboat people called out as they were in the UK last year?"


There are more than a dozen drysuits available to the DFB and all motors carry waders for the more minor floods. Priority will obviously be given to people in immediate danger and anyone left in their car for an hour has obviously been deemed to be safe for the time being. Whilst sitting in a wet car is not ideal it does not mean you are at immediate risk


The major problem as ever is the inabiliy of drains and riverbeds etc to cope with excessive rain. The rain yesterday was one months rain in a couple of hours. The planning needs to be done to prevent it in the first place rather than having to deal with the aftermath





"

CLADA

This situation developed in less than an hour and assisting people caught by the flash flooding takes all available resources of DFB, ambulance and Gardai. What compounds the problem is the amount of people who drive themselves into a situation where they are stranded by flood waters.

Public announcements by the media on behalf of Gardai advising drivers not to make unneccesary journeys are not invitations to come on out and have a look:mad:

Road flooded warnings are not challenges to test the seaworthiness of your car.

Yesterday I tried to explain to a driver in a ford focus that this particular stretch of road was impassible and pointed out the stranded vehicles. His reply was, "can I try, because I really need to get through".

The army should be deployed in these situations.......for sniper training.
:mad:

civdef

I was wondering if any preparatory plans were in place or indeed if joint service exercises were run/planned. They make all the difference when it comes to senior managers getting it right on the day.

Yep, the new major Emergency Framework implementation programme has been underway since 2006, and exercises form an important part of this.

The link below gives a good outline of progress to the start of this year:
http://www.mem.ie/memdocuments/mid%20term%20progress%20report.pdf

The site mem.ie is the place to go for info on the process.

msg11

Come on lads, this could have been easily voided to a certain extent. If drains were kept clean and can actully handle the water, the water would end up in a more safe place.

I was nearly left stranded in my house yesterday, cause of Dublin City Council. They just refuse to link a drain up outside my house, I have been asking for years.

At the end of the day, it's mother nature and her ways, they can't be helped.

civdef

One problem is flash floodwater picks up all matter of crap, and washes this into the drains.

the locust

I think its a fair point though that Dublin/Irish water drainage systems are pretty bad compared to other cities in europe.

msg11

civdef wrote: »

One problem is flash floodwater picks up all matter of crap, and washes this into the drains.

Very true point. But I cannot get is how, the water pushing down on all this crap dose not move it, I say it is really poor maintenance and lack of drainage, Sorry for saying this, but we pay taxes on everything, the government should not have to really on the ES to dig them out...

metman

Its a fair point Msg. Yep a lot of rain fell in one day. That's not in dispute. However when you factor in the abysmal lack of drainage on new roads like the M50, and the closure of the Port Tunnel for the same reason, well its just the same old same old with Ireland isn't it? Brown envelopes and the minimal standard of work done.

civdef

What evidence have you for this though?

metman

CD res ipsa loquitur! The thing speaks for itself.

civdef

I dunno, contract oversight rules really have tightened up so much in the last 20 decades that scams of the kind you describe are pretty much a thing of the past. The "minimal standard of work done" comes down to the fact that jobs are done on tight budgets, rather than corruption.

If inadequate drainage was contributory, it's more likely to be because it was judged that the amount provided would be sufficient in relation to the costs involved. How often do roads in these areas flood under less than "heaviest rainfall ever recorded conditions"?

u2gooner

I worked last night in a northside DFB station and it was the busiest night of my short career so far - Madness!!

We helped this poor Guard at one stage on the M1. Felt sorry for her being stuck there soaking wet but she wouldnt come with us as she was waiting for a squad car to come pick her up.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055352223&page=2

I think its safe to say all the services are under resourced and it shows in a time like this. But as usual everyone gets stuck in and Id like to say thank you and well done to everyone who was out on the frontlines last night.

Random

u2gooner wrote: »

I worked last night in a northside DFB station and it was the busiest night of my short career so far - Madness!!

We helped this poor Guard at one stage on the M1. Felt sorry for her being stuck there soaking wet but she wouldnt come with us as she was waiting for a squad car to come pick her up.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055352223&page=2

I think its safe to say all the services are under resourced and it shows in a time like this. But as usual everyone gets stuck in and Id like to say thank you and well done to everyone who was out on the frontlines last night.

Was this her?

Sierra Oscar

The weather that we saw was un-predicated, and at the time un-predictable. I think the Emergency Services did a mighty good job considering no severe flooding alerts were given 24 hours in advance.

lostexpectation

own up who got their ambo stuck?

petergfiffin

As a civvie I don't think it's possible to blame any one agency for the failures on Saturday but surely Met Eireann have to take some of the flak. If they had seen what was coming they should have given advance warning to the emergency services which would have allowed enough time to call in extra help from people like the army who if nothing else could have provided extra bodies to man junctions to direct traffic or at least would have had some better vehicles for getting through the floods.

There was a representative on from Dublin City Council (I think) on Saturday and he seemed to think the fact that nobody was dead meant everybody had done a fantastic job, seriously!!!???? The reason nobody was killed or seriously injured was purely luck. I'm not having a go at the bods on the ground cause you can only do the best you can with what you've been given and I think most do a great job under v difficult circumstances but it's about time the powers that be raised their game. I honestly think somebody(s) at the top deserves a good kicking for what happened on Saturday

RANT OVER!!!!

BizPost

Still think the council needs to gets a better handle of what resources are out there, what they're capable of and use them. A red cross jeep sitting in a driveway in Finglas could be used locally rather than sitting in a driveway for the night because they haven't been called out.

If it started lashing at 5pm, how long did it take before the Civil Defence were called out? How many jeeps do they have?

Leaving a flooded road unmanned without any markings for over twelve hours while more cars drive into it isn't acceptable. Its putting life and property at risk. Agree Driver stupidity can play a part but that's not going to change overnight. All it would take is a jeep/ car blocking the road. There's enough of organisations willing to help out but just aren't co-ordinated or called out so they don't respond.

Fyr.Fytr

Howth coast guard were called out to assist a couple of time the other night see here: http://www.howthcoastguard.com/2008/08/11/howth-coast-guard-assist-in-flooding/

Fyr.Fytr

Quick one for paul and any other dfb lads, if flood are predicted could dfb call in lads on o/t and get them to man the reserve motors from the obi, stanley st and no 3 and send them out to pump flood waters.

now i know they dont have the full complement of equipment but all you really need is suction and pumping equipment. Is it possible or does it raise union issues?

Paulzx

There are no union issues with having extra personnel called in on overtime to provide extra resouces. Overtime is voluntary and its up to individuals if they wish to come in. There have been events in the past ( the eu summit a few years ago ) where extra manning was brought in to specifically cover an event. Appliances were assigned specifically to the summit amd manned by overtime crews . The Gardai also had DFB ambos assigned to them in case gardai were injured. These were also crewed by overtime.

However, i have never heard of extra crews being pre empted because of a bad weather forecast. Pumping out is generally only effective after the flooding has stopped. During the flooding event it is virtually impossible to pump water out. No pump can cope with the quantitiy of water involved and there is also nowhere to pump it. If the Tolka river is flowing through your front room you can forget about pumping. Resources have to be concentrated on risk to life rather than risk to property

Fyr.Fytr

Thanks paulm thought the hse incident response guys were assigned to the guards, didnt know dfb had their hats in the ring too, thanks mate

BizPost

Do the Fire Brigade/ Garda lads here think anything more should have been done? eg calling in men on OT as Fyr suggested?

The problem I see with calling in people from all over the place to report to one location is that they in turn get caught up in the floods and it could take them 3 or 4 hours to get there. I guess thats' why the Civil Defence works well as people live near the different stations but how long does it take before they get called in?

Sounds like you can't do a lot with pumping out the water so its Rescue work which you need to have proper equipment like jeeps and training. What depth of water can the jeeps go into?

Paulzx

Which jeeps?

civdef

What depth of water can the jeeps go into?

Generally it's best to keep the water below the wheel hubs. If you don't know how deep it is, find out before driving in.

Fyr.Fytr

Could we have found a use for the ill fated dfb tunnel escort jeeps

opti76

seems to be round 2 of the biblical floods tonight..

Fyr.Fytr

Its not ment to be as bad as it will only be heavy showers and not heavy prolonged rain like Saturday but still expect surface water on roads and flash flooding

Eru

BizPost wrote: »

Does Dublin seem to fall apart when it comes to organisation in responding to fllooding.

Traffic Control
There was more than the guards needed to warn and divert traffic. Why weren't the army mobilised? As cars were pulled out of flooded roads others just drove straight in.
Rescue
Apparently there are only a dozen drysuits in all of Dublin Fire Brigade across a couple of Fire Engines. They need to be able to deal with sort of stuff a lot quicker and not leave people trapped in cars waiting for an hour to be rescued. Where were'nt some of the lifeboat people called out as they were in the UK last year?

Say no more:P

dub45

Could I go back to keeping the shores clear? I live in Kilmainham (Mount Brown part) and we are flood prone. We have a very close thing on Saturday and only a guy had the hooks to get a manhole cover open we would have had houses flooded. The shores would not take the rain at all.

Now we had some serious work recently on the footpaths getting the water supply overhauled and this no doubt added considerably to the stuff going down the shores but there appears to be no arrangements in place to have shores cleared after such work. There are several shores in the area clearly blocked and there is one on James St hill which I have been asking them to clean for several years now which has weeds growing out of it!

I would also like to mention DCC's ''phone system'' - surely they should have some sort of call management system including a call back so that they know all the areas they are getting calls from? At least if you could leave a message stating the area etc it might stop the system being 'flooded' with calls? When I tried to suggest this on Monday to DCC I was told that they got loads of calls on Saturday!:rolleyes:

If they do not know all the areas that are hit by the floods then how can they hope to address the problems in the areas concerned?

It is sickening listening to these DCC guys on the radio talking about all the equipment they have etc etc What good is that if you cannot get through to them on the phone!
Surely getting help should not be the equivalent of trying to win a prize on a radio phone in!!!

As it stands we have a very serious situation on Saturday including residents putting their own safety at risk to try and get cars to slow down and the authorities are unaware of it. When we rang the gardai in kilmainham for help we were told they were too busy (that I can understand) but there was no attempt to log the call or ascertain the seriousness of the situation.

Eru

dub45 wrote: »

Could I go back to keeping the shores clear? I live in Kilmainham (Mount Brown part) and we are flood prone. We have a very close thing on Saturday and only a guy had the hooks to get a manhole cover open we would have had houses flooded. The shores would not take the rain at all.

Now we had some serious work recently on the footpaths getting the water supply overhauled and this no doubt added considerably to the stuff going down the shores but there appears to be no arrangements in place to have shores cleared after such work. There are several shores in the area clearly blocked and there is one on James St hill which I have been asking them to clean for several years now which has weeds growing out of it!

I would also like to mention DCC's ''phone system'' - surely they should have some sort of call management system including a call back so that they know all the areas they are getting calls from? At least if you could leave a message stating the area etc it might stop the system being 'flooded' with calls? When I tried to suggest this on Monday to DCC I was told that they got loads of calls on Saturday!:rolleyes:

If they do not know all the areas that are hit by the floods then how can they hope to address the problems in the areas concerned?

It is sickening listening to these DCC guys on the radio talking about all the equipment they have etc etc What good is that if you cannot get through to them on the phone!
Surely getting help should not be the equivalent of trying to win a prize on a radio phone in!!!

As it stands we have a very serious situation on Saturday including residents putting their own safety at risk to try and get cars to slow down and the authorities are unaware of it. When we rang the gardai in kilmainham for help we were told they were too busy (that I can understand) but there was no attempt to log the call or ascertain the seriousness of the situation.

Do you mean the Gardai didnt log the call or review the situation or are you going back to the councils call system again?

dub45

Karlitosway1978 wrote: »

Do you mean the Gardai didnt log the call or review the situation or are you going back to the councils call system again?

The gardai did not log the call. I never got through to the Council for them to log the call!

Eru

dub45 wrote: »

The gardai did not log the call. I never got through to the Council for them to log the call!

Who exacty should the Gardai be arresting in this situation? The offending items that are blocking the drain perhaps?

Bad weather isnt a Garda matter nor are they trained, equiped or mandated to respond to calls concerning blocked drains. A bit of common sense please, Gardai deal with crime.

BizPost

Karlitosway1978 wrote: »

Who exacty should the Gardai be arresting in this situation? The offending items that are blocking the drain perhaps?

Bad weather isnt a Garda matter nor are they trained, equiped or mandated to respond to calls concerning blocked drains. A bit of common sense please, Gardai deal with crime.

Hold up there TJ Hooker saying the Guards only deal with crime.

They are also service in the community and bad weather that threathens road closures becomes part of the Garda remit. They have also been involved in everything from saving people's lives to helping old ladies across the road and fair play to them.

dub45

Karlitosway1978 wrote: »

Who exacty should the Gardai be arresting in this situation? The offending items that are blocking the drain perhaps?

Bad weather isnt a Garda matter nor are they trained, equiped or mandated to respond to calls concerning blocked drains. A bit of common sense please, Gardai deal with crime.

Given that I wrote that we had a serious situation ''including residents putting their own safety at risk to try and get cars to slow down'' and followed on in the very next sentence to mention contacting the Gardai and seeking their help I assumed that anyone reading the post would be able to discern that we were seeking the Garda help to deal with the traffic situation.

I was obviously wrong in my assumption:rolleyes:

Paulzx

Karlitosway1978 wrote: »

Bad weather isnt a Garda matter nor are they trained, equiped or mandated to respond to calls concerning blocked drains. A bit of common sense please, Gardai deal with crime.

In fairness to dub45 he made reference to the Gardai in connection to a traffic management role not that they were required for flood rescue activities. However, we are still getting back to the fact that individual drivers are stupid enough to drive through floods that are obviously unmanageable for a normal car.

dub45 if you want a call logged with the gardai dial 999. The calls to here are proparly logged and recorded. Ringing direct to a station is no guarentee the call will be recorded.

As regards constantly blocked shores now is the time to start putting serious pressure on DCC to get them unblocked. Get the names of the people you are dealing with and quote them in writing as you complain further up the food chain. Give them names to the local TD aswell.