Cork floods Jan 2014

hoodwinked

Cork City is flooding again

photos's on twitter showing how bad it is:


South Mall:






Oliver Plunkett Street:




i reckon if the water has hit oliver plunkett street it is going to be bad again.

calnand

It's high tide now so it'll start going away soon. But if the rain continues it could be very bad tonight.

run_Forrest_run

fingers crossed it won't be as bad as previous years...very worrying for residents and business owners alike.

Is there anything that can be done to prevent this by the authorities? Flood prevention etc? Are the council to blame for not using money to the right affect while wasting millions on a hanging garden?? :rolleyes: ...just askin'...

pwurple

It's high tide mixed with heavy rain. I'm no fan of the council, but it's hard for them to control either of those things... nowhere for the water to flow to at high tide.

Jimmy Bottles

pwurple wrote: »

It's high tide mixed with heavy rain. I'm no fan of the council, but it's hard for them to control either of those things... nowhere for the water to flow to at high tide.

I for one cannot workout how cork floods so easily. If anything, Cork is the city that should flood the least as it has the number one piece of anti-flood technology in all of Ireland.

The Iniscarra Dam and the lake behind it.

A small bit of joined up thinking will prevent flooding in Cork in almost 100% of cases. Its simple. Drain the lake down to half its usual level during winter months. When there is very heavy rain, reduce the water flow out of the dam and leave the water levels rise. If the lake is at half level, they have loads of room to play with.

The only downside is a fall off in electricity production. A small price to pay to stop the city flooding.

ilovesmybrick

Jimmy Bottles wrote: »

I for one cannot workout how cork floods so easily. If anything, Cork is the city that should flood the least as it has the number one piece of anti-flood technology in all of Ireland.

The Iniscarra Dam and the lake behind it.

A small bit of joined up thinking will prevent flooding in Cork in almost 100% of cases. Its simple. Drain the lake down to half its usual level during winter months. When there is very heavy rain, reduce the water flow out of the dam and leave the water levels rise. If the lake is at half level, they have loads of room to play with.

The only downside is a fall off in electricity production. A small price to pay to stop the city flooding.

It's fairly simple why Cork floods so much, the city centre is a collection of islands and river inlets that were covered over to create roads. Look at the building fronts like Le Chateau and some of the other buildings on South Mall, they have the weird entrance with steps up to another door because the lower level, what is now the front entrance, was actually a goods entrance for material being brought to the door by boat. Grand Parade, Patrick St., South Mall, Washinton St etc. were all river tributaries until the mid-eighteenth century. The dam keeps the city from flooding quite as much as it did in the past and slows the Lee down coming through the city.

Rosswind

Spring tides this week would flood lower parts of cork city regardless of weather conditions. Add flood water from the lee, curraheen etc with low atmospheric pressure and a southeasterly breeze creates perfect conditions for excessive flooding. Nothing the council can do really.

spcleigh

any update so far?

hoodwinked

spcleigh wrote: »

any update so far?

water is receding apparently but will be 6 inch's higher at high tide in the morning.

Pro Hoc Vice

Jimmy Bottles wrote: »

I for one cannot workout how cork floods so easily. If anything, Cork is the city that should flood the least as it has the number one piece of anti-flood technology in all of Ireland.

The Iniscarra Dam and the lake behind it.

A small bit of joined up thinking will prevent flooding in Cork in almost 100% of cases. Its simple. Drain the lake down to half its usual level during winter months. When there is very heavy rain, reduce the water flow out of the dam and leave the water levels rise. If the lake is at half level, they have loads of room to play with.

The only downside is a fall off in electricity production. A small price to pay to stop the city flooding.

Cork has historically two different types of flooding. The fist is river flooding to the west since the building of the dam there has if I'm correct been one serious flooding incident. The second type is flooding of the east of the city caused by spring tides and heavy rainfall. Cork got its name from the Irish Corcaigh or Marsh. A large area of the city is still called the marsh. Cork also had the name Venice of the North.

spcleigh

has it affected any businesses yet?

corkgsxr

Jimmy Bottles wrote: »

I for one cannot workout how cork floods so easily. If anything, Cork is the city that should flood the least as it has the number one piece of anti-flood technology in all of Ireland.

The Iniscarra Dam and the lake behind it.

A small bit of joined up thinking will prevent flooding in Cork in almost 100% of cases. Its simple. Drain the lake down to half its usual level during winter months. When there is very heavy rain, reduce the water flow out of the dam and leave the water levels rise. If the lake is at half level, they have loads of room to play with.

The only downside is a fall off in electricity production. A small price to pay to stop the city flooding.

Limerick controls the opening and closing of the dam so its not as easy to regulate. But still no excuse

Do people remember almost constant dredging of the waterways? I haven't seen it in years. Silt builds up and river capacity goes down. City floods easyer

SeaFields

The dam is used very effectively to control flooding and has been for a long time. But because of the citys location, as mentioned by a previous poster, it can only do so much. Also the water above the dam only accounts for 60% of the inflow to the Lee system. Thats 40% of a system the dam doesnt have control over in addition to the tidal system.

Outkast_IRE

I would say there is nothing that could be done in the dam in the last few months to prevent these types of floods as the main factors are.

1. Highest tides of the year literally leaving nowhere for the water to flow to.
2. Land is saturated due to these very wet weather systems we have been subject to the last month.
3. Low pressure with regards to the weather has a large effect on the height of the tides etc.
4. Wind direction in this case blowing water in towards the city, has a notable effect too.

This is a problem cork will have to live with, and has always lived with in the past, if there was any sense there would be a concerted effort when looking at planning applications for any building or renovation in these areas to ask what are your flood defences and how will you cope with these regular floods. The most obvious way to cope is to have steps up into the building and ensure any basements have the necessary anti flooding measures. Or to restrict the building of basements.

corkgsxr

SeaFields wrote: »

The dam is used very effectively to control flooding and has been for a long time. But because of the citys location, as mentioned by a previous poster, it can only do so much. Also the water above the dam only accounts for 60% of the inflow to the Lee system. Thats 40% of a system the dam doesnt have control over in addition to the tidal system.

Ah stop the dam can raise the water by a metre in ten mins if they open up. So it has a big effect and they do very little to moderate it its normally too late in realising its too high for a weather event and have to release anyway

Ludo

Build one of these bad boys over the tunnel

BryanF

Ludo wrote: »

Build one of these bad boys over the tunnel

How much?

Ludo

BryanF wrote: »

How much?

A lot more than cork is worth

ScrubsfanChris

BryanF wrote: »

How much?

Over £500 million in 1984, but I know a guy who will do it for cheap

JP Liz V1

Looks quite bad

evilivor

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Looks quite bad

Yes.

JP Liz V1

River Lee has burst its banks apparently

BanzaiBk

Anyone know if the Sharman Crawford/Lancaster Quay area is flooded?

JP Liz V1

BanzaiBk wrote: »

Anyone know if the Sharman Crawford/Lancaster Quay area is flooded?

I assume they are

bee06

BanzaiBk wrote: »

Anyone know if the Sharman Crawford/Lancaster Quay area is flooded?

Wandsworth quay is anyway. Just saw a pic on the red fm Facebook page.

BanzaiBk

bee06 wrote: »

Wandsworth quay is anyway. Just saw a pic on the red fm Facebook page.

Just saw the same pic. Nightmare!

evilivor

BanzaiBk wrote: »

Anyone know if the Sharman Crawford/Lancaster Quay area is flooded?

Pics on the RTE website of flooded Sharman Crawford St earlier.

beer enigma

It's a shame so much was spent on "the most intelligent lights ever" on the Skehard Road, rather than on shoring up the quays and flood defence.

kub

evilivor wrote: »

Yes.

That's just it, a Cork always floats.

Manach

At least we are not twinned with Atlantis,yet.

Days 298

Some rain lashing down now.

angelfire9

I don't get it... Ennis like cork was always prone to flooding, like Cork the river goes all around the town, the name Ennis means Island after all
Ennis town council spent millions on flood prevention works and no flooding yet despite high tide and massive rainfall
Pics on Clare forum!

Cork Lass

Has anyone got any updates on conditions in City Centre. Need to get to work this morning and I work on Fr. Mathew Quay. Nothing on the radio yet.

SnowY32

Cork Lass wrote: »

Has anyone got any updates on conditions in City Centre. Need to get to work this morning and I work on Fr. Mathew Quay. Nothing on the radio yet.

Flooding on Morrison's Island South Tce & South Mall

https://twitter.com/PaulByrne_1

SnowY32

Water spilling onto south mall again

https://twitter.com/jonathanhealy/status/418999038885646336/photo/1

Cork Lass

Well, I arrived in work at 8.30 and there were no problems getting here. All flooding has subsided in this area.

Mushy

Just into work now. Go along by city hall/lapps quay, only surface water there was the poodle thats always there when it rains.

Lyaiera

I was out and about before 7. Whoever was saying there was flooding on South Mall then was plain wrong. There were a few spots with some water remaining but most of it had receded. Loads of cars, buses and lorries driving up and down it. It was mostly gone from around the RTE building too.

Red Nissan

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

Is there anything that can be done to prevent this by the authorities? Flood prevention etc? Are the council to blame for not using money to the right affect while wasting millions on a hanging garden?? :rolleyes: ...just askin'...

There has been billions spent over the years. In the 60's I was treated to Nine Foot Floods which had cars and van floating away and entire shop front completely covered.

We don't see these floods today, Oliver Plunkett street has been raised considerably, basement storage areas filled in and abandoned all along the street and the river has been modified slightly but work in on going and weather patterns change continually.

Cork flooding is also conditional on the up stream dams, no matter what infrastructure that can be put in place, it can all be circumvented by the dam's controllers.

New flood relief measures are incorporated into the Atlantic Pond development which will double the tidal overflow containment and could lead to the disappearance of these tidal floods. For a few
years at any rate.

Red Nissan

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The most obvious way to cope is to have steps up into the building and ensure any basements have the necessary anti flooding measures. Or to restrict the building of basements.

Believe it or not, they are already there on Patrick Street and the South Mall. Cork used to be like Venice and both these streets were part of the river and occupants used to tie up their boats by the railings and walk up the steps.

evilivor

Mushy wrote: »

Just into work now. Go along by city hall/lapps quay, only surface water there was the poodle thats always there when it rains.

Who owns the poodle?

SpaceTime

angelfire9 wrote: »

I don't get it... Ennis like cork was always prone to flooding, like Cork the river goes all around the town, the name Ennis means Island after all
Ennis town council spent millions on flood prevention works and no flooding yet despite high tide and massive rainfall
Pics on Clare forum!

It would require a lot more than those kinds of measures (many of which the city has anyway).

It needs a tidal barrier. The city is very low lying and sits on huge culverts (covered over waterways)

Cork Lass

Mushy wrote: »

Just into work now. Go along by city hall/lapps quay, only surface water there was the poodle thats always there when it rains.

Is this the Poodle?

angelfire9

SpaceTime wrote: »

It would require a lot more than those kinds of measures (many of which the city has anyway).

It needs a tidal barrier. The city is very low lying and sits on huge culverts (covered over waterways)

Full length of the river here has 9ft barriers installed, all the walls around the river in town centre were built up... First year in my memory that ENNIS has not flooded with massive rainfall, it's so bad around here the Shannon has burst it's banks in parts of limerick city
By some miracle ENNIS town council actually got something right for once!

SpaceTime

angelfire9 wrote: »

Full length of the river here has 9ft barriers installed, all the walls around the river in town centre were built up... First year in my memory that ENNIS has not flooded with massive rainfall, it's so bad around here the Shannon has burst it's banks in parts of limerick city
By some miracle ENNIS town council actually got something right for once!

That wouldn't actually solve the problem in Cork as the water flows UNDER the city.

There are literally underground rivers running under several of the main streets.

That's what's under Cork's streets : http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/media/culvert.jpg

Cork City's basically built on a collection of islands on a river delta. Over the centuries, they filled in the gaps between the islands and reclaimed a lot of land. That's what created the meandering streets in the city centre - they are actually rivers!

During high winds, you get a tidal surge up the harbour caused by wind driving it towards the city. If you combine that with high rainfall and high tide you've BIG problems in low lying parts of Cork City.

The river generally doesn't actually breech the quay walls. Rather, the water literally comes up through the culverts and up through the surface water drains causing the flooding.

The only way to prevent it would be to put a barrier down stream of the city that is raised during high tide events.

There's a similar situation Hull in England for example and a tidal barrier has made a huge difference.

Cork would need a pretty serious piece of engineering to fix this problem, but it's not insurmountable and it wouldn't need to be anything on the same scale as the Themes barrier. Tidal barriers in small / medium cities aren't that unusual as many of them are very low lying.

The massive floods a few years ago were caused by releasing a dam ! They weren't tidal flooding and that's when the river did badly breech the walls (in some cases demolished them!). However, that was quite a freak incident as opposed to the regular flood events that hit the city like this.

Solving this problem is going to take considerable investment, however it's very solvable.

I would be more concerned about how they're going to solve costal flooding in Dublin as a lot of it is very low lying and sitting on the coast.

I would suspect Dublin's going to need a tidal barrier for the city centre areas and dykes build along the built-up coastal areas. It's going to mean some sea-front housing losing its view, but it's better than being underwater.

At least Cork could probably be resolved with a tidal barrier, Dublin's going to need a hell of a lot more work as it's much more 'porous'

angelfire9

SpaceTime wrote: »

That wouldn't actually solve the problem in Cork as the water flows UNDER the city.

There are literally underground rivers running under several of the main streets.

That's what's under Cork's streets : http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/media/culvert.jpg

Cork City's basically built on a collection of islands on a river delta. Over the centuries, they filled in the gaps between the islands and reclaimed a lot of land. That's what created the meandering streets in the city centre - they are actually rivers!

During high winds, you get a tidal surge up the harbour caused by wind driving it towards the city. If you combine that with high rainfall and high tide you've BIG problems in low lying parts of Cork City.

The river generally doesn't actually breech the quay walls. Rather, the water literally comes up through the culverts and up through the surface water drains causing the flooding.

The only way to prevent it would be to put a barrier down stream of the city that is raised during high tide events.

There's a similar situation Hull in England for example and a tidal barrier has made a huge difference.

Cork would need a pretty serious piece of engineering to fix this problem, but it's not insurmountable and it wouldn't need to be anything on the same scale as the Themes barrier. Tidal barriers in small / medium cities aren't that unusual as many of them are very low lying.

The water used to come up through the drains here too, back in June when the water levels were low the drainage system and river beds were cleaned out and some of the underground network was blocked up with water diverting to flood plains outside of the town, not a clue how they did it but am delighted it worked

ilovesmybrick

angelfire9 wrote: »

Full length of the river here has 9ft barriers installed, all the walls around the river in town centre were built up... First year in my memory that ENNIS has not flooded with massive rainfall, it's so bad around here the Shannon has burst it's banks in parts of limerick city
By some miracle ENNIS town council actually got something right for once!

Ennis has nowhere near the level of flooding historically that Cork has, there have been two, maybe three, major floods in the past 15 years, and the council was told the flood defences put in place around 2006 were inadequate by the consulting archaeologists and would only force the floods down towards the Colaiste and Steeles, which happened in 2009. Anyway the defences needed for Ennis are only for about a mile long stretch and the weir by Clarecastle prevents most tidal movements in the Fergus. Cork harbour opens directly to the sea.

Also as pointed out by spacetime Cork is built on underground rivers. You can't really compare the flood defences of a town like Ennis, with one river running through it, with Cork city, which is built over and hemmed in by tributaries of a quite a bit larger and more powerful waterway.

SpaceTime

angelfire9 wrote: »

The water used to come up through the drains here too, back in June when the water levels were low the drainage system and river beds were cleaned out and some of the underground network was blocked up with water diverting to flood plains outside of the town, not a clue how they did it but am delighted it worked

They're not drains, they're actually parts of the River Lee itself.

Cork has a pretty extensive network of culverts under the city carrying a hell of a lot of river water through what are literally underground rivers some of which are wider than many above ground rivers in other parts of the country.

Then you've issues with underground natural aquifers and porous limestone that carries water. On top of that you've got naturally very high ground water levels.

Then you've got brackish water intrusion issues where salt-water reacts with the foundations of buildings, wiring systems, cast iron pipes etc causing major problems.

I've heard that that's one of the major problems with pipe leakage in Cork City. You've a combination of cast iron pipes from the 1860s carrying mains water that are sitting in what amounts to a slightly salty marsh. So, they corrode rather spectacularly.

In general, Cork's flooding problems are pretty complicated in common with a lot of low-lying old European cities.

The water can literally just start coming up through the ground (not just the drains) but through duct networks, through foundations of buildings etc etc.

Preventing the tidal 'bulge' up the river is probably the only way it could be resolved.

If sea levels rise dramatically, areas of Cork and Dublin are pretty much write-offs without major dyke and barrier building. The cost of rising sea levels is going to be very steep if we're going to preserve a lot of older cities.

The other option is to let them sink or raise the street levels, but I don't know if that's acceptable.

There are really serious hydrological issues in both of those cities because of how they were built over the centuries.

Cork's probably worse in some respects - more complicated hydrological system but Dublin suffers from more extensive urban coastline.

I'm unfamiliar with problems that might impact Galway and Limerick, but they do not seem to be anywhere nearly as complex.

jArgHA

Mushy wrote: »

Just into work now. Go along by city hall/lapps quay, only surface water there was the poodle thats always there when it rains.

Think it was this lad, he's always hanging around there.

Mushy

evilivor wrote: »

Who owns the poodle?

Shhh it was early!

kerry4sam

I am hearing that the River Lee has burst its' banks this morning around by South Terrace and South Mall.