how to solve flood crisis

the_pen_turner

hi there

I hope this thread doesn't turn into a big mess


what can be done to stop or at least reduce the flood crisis in this country


I think we need one authority over rivers that make sure that they are cleaned
I live beside a river and down stream is full of trees down in it. we get as much out as we can


establish in law what are flood plains and set up systems to protect them from development

demolish some developments that are in flood planes and restore them for the greater good

plant more trees to help soak up water

make it law that all properties be responsible for their run off. make car parks and yards permeable and soak away areas under them

widen any arches under bridges that are slowing down rivers and catching debris


what do you think can be done to solve this problem

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

I think when the rain and weather get really bad they should take the roads in.

It'll save them being damaged and discourage people from travelling

Cantona's Collars

We have the president visiting Enniscorthy,yep-a 4 foot tall man is going to help.:rolleyes:

Whosthis

OOOOOOHHH BODYFORRRRM, BODYFORM FOR YOOOOOOUUUUUU.!

artanevilla

Air drop large sponges into affected areas.

The Randy Riverbeast

We all live on boats. Flooding then becomes a good thing.

paleoperson

An Irish solution... get a couple of tractors and get them to pump it away.

Barry Badrinath

STILTS!

the_pen_turner

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

We all live on boats. Flooding then becomes a good thing.

not as stupid as you think.
I watched a documentary a while back where some guy bought a wet site and build a few houses that would float . when the water rose the house would rise with it.
it was probably in somewhere organised like Scandinavia or holland

Custardpi

The obvious solution, as every decent business person knows is not to see the floods as a crisis but rather an opportunity. For instance, instead of moaning about a bit of water in Enniscorthy why not embrace it & rebrand the town as "The Venice of South Eastern Ireland". This will save on expensive flood repairs (the water will be left there), while providing exciting potential for tourism.

KERSPLAT!

A few tubes of silicone

Ruu

Something something Irish Water.

Richard Hillman

It's tough one. It would cost a hell of a lot of money to install permanent flood defences.

I am quite disappointed with the response to the floods. If there was a natural disaster in another country we would be inundated with charity colllections for the victim's. Where are the hotlines and collectors for this???

Ruu

Lagging jackets maybe?

Atlantic Dawn

A big massive Chinese style reservour in the centre of the country might not be a bad idea, look for least populated area and use that.

the_pen_turner

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

A few tubes of silicone

you can laugh and mock all you want.

silicon will help. it cant do any harm


my neighbour was/is threatened by flooding. almost at floor level a few days ago

I siliconed her front door before we put the sand bags there


I know it wont stop it coming up through the floor or through the toilets or soaking through the walls. but it will dramatically reduce the volume coming through the door

RobbingBandit

Dam the lot of them...

The rivers that is

cbyrd

A huge big pipe.!

Picture it okay..
Spain in the summer being kept hydrated by Irish flood water.. A big pipe, not as big as the mahogany gas pipe from Russia mind, but big enough to ship and pay for Itself and Irish Water would have a good name again.. (as in not the company) but real unflouridated water..

topmanamillion

Do not build on flood plains.
5 years minimum jail sentence for any local authority member that ignores engineering reports.

The simple fact is we can't build defenses along the entire length of the river shannon (360km long)
Where defences can be improved that makes sense both financially and environmentally then do it. But there are some people, through no fault of their own, who are living in unsustainable areas. They will have to be relocated/compensated through state coffers and areas designated as flood plains and the building of further homes/commercial areas on them prevented by law.

colossus-x

Relocate all towns away from major rivers. Towns by rivers is a throwback to the an era when traders travelled by boat/river and congregated by a port or whatever. If we didn't build all our towns around them then we wouldn't be suffering so much.

Atlantic Dawn

colossus-x wrote: »

Relocate all towns away from major rivers. Towns by rivers is a throwback to the an era when traders travelled by boat/river and congregated by a port or whatever. If we didn't build all our towns around them then we wouldn't be suffering so much.

How much will that cost?

topmanamillion

colossus-x wrote: »

Relocate all towns away from major rivers. Towns by rivers is a throwback to the an era when traders travelled by boat/river and congregated by a port or whatever. If we didn't build all our towns around them then we wouldn't be suffering so much.

Completely unfeasible, every major town and city in the country is built on/near a river.

cbyrd

colossus-x wrote:

Relocate all towns away from major rivers. Towns by rivers is a throwback to the an era when traders travelled by boat/river and congregated by a port or whatever. If we didn't build all our towns around them then we wouldn't be suffering so much.

They're already built.. The reaction now is has to be a solution rather than a blame game/what should have been done.. The damage is done. Time to find a real workable solution.

Mountainsandh

Lots of artificial lakes/reservoirs + deeper drains/ditches like in other countries.


Or, in the toothless words of the wise old man who renovated my old cottage : "polybond it".
(The answer to all of life's problems)

For Forks Sake

RobbingBandit wrote: »

Dam the lot of them...

The rivers that is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6YQ8VBusQI

smash

Iodine tablets?

They'll have to become useful at some stage...

diomed

Everyone should live on a mountain or we should build an ark or tell the culchies to htfu.

SEPT 23 1989

remove all the obstacles to free flowing water with bouncing bombs

syklops

Stop building on flood plains would be a start.

Stop bribing the planning authority to let you live anywhere you want. would also help.

jmayo

the_pen_turner wrote: »

not as stupid as you think.
I watched a documentary a while back where some guy bought a wet site and build a few houses that would float . when the water rose the house would rise with it.
it was probably in somewhere organised like Scandinavia or holland

Actually a guy on Grand Designs built a floating house along the Thames in an area that floods.
The house basement is within a concrete tank structure much like a ship's dry dock and on four posts nicknamed "dolphins".
It raises up and down on the posts if flood water gets into the tank.

Really cool, but really expensive.
And knowing some Irish builders I would be loathe to build it here.

Custardpi wrote: »

The obvious solution, as every decent business person knows is not to see the floods as a crisis but rather an opportunity. ..

I thought Aldi/Lidl missed an opportunity not having their inflatable boats in stock.

jmayo

syklops wrote: »

Stop building on flood plains would be a start.

Stop bribing the planning authority to let you live anywhere you want. would also help.

Carrick on Shannon is great example of this stupidity.
The council allowed housing development/shops along the river on road to Sligo, in an area that anyone with a memory or an ounce of cop on could easily deduce was liable to flood.

Custardpi

Given that so many towns are already built near rivers & on flood plains it's probably unrealistic to just move them. What could be done however is to map out which section of each town/area is likely to be flooded in the event of the local river overflowing. Then build as many highrise apartment buildings (30 stories or so) as are needed to accomodate the residents of those areas, only putting apartments above the 3rd floor. Offer affected residents financial incentives to move into the new buildings then bulldoze their old homes. This should take pressure off the floodplain & ensure that when a river does flood it won't be as serious for residents. There'll be some initial problems & a substantial investment needed at the start but I reckon that long term it's a fair solution.

snubbleste

Ban precipitation!

Richard Hillman

Richard Hillman wrote: »

It's tough one. It would cost a hell of a lot of money to install permanent flood defences.

I am quite disappointed with the response to the floods. If there was a natural disaster in another country we would be inundated with charity colllections for the victim's. Where are the hotlines and collectors for this???

It's called the tax we pay that is meant to cover emergencies.

Kimbot

Put everything on stilts

lifeandtimes

Have a massive tea party...order in millions of kettles and billions of tea cups and teabags and drink it all away

tigerboon

topmanamillion wrote: »

The simple fact is we can't build defenses along the entire length of the river shannon (360km long)

The simplest defence would be a soil bank along both sides. The rivers in this country are never dredged. Buy a handful of dredgers, dredge the Shannon and lower the bed by a meter or two, use the dredged material to build up the banks by a meter or two, that's up to four meters extra capacity in the river channel. To handle extreme events, build an overflow channel/pipe direct to the sea/lakes. Cheaper than moving towns

BoJack Horseman

More trees...

Much much more trees...

Ban gay marriage again. This is clearly God's wrath.

A Dub in Glasgo

What is the extent of flooded properties, is it estates or one off housing or whole towns? Did I read somewhere that there are about 200 properties flooded?

BoJack Horseman

Deleted User wrote: »

Ban gay marriage again. This is clearly God's wrath.

That is the UKIP position all right.

Del2005

Designate areas of land that can be flooded instead of trying to stop the flooding, if necessary pay the private landowners compensation but state bodies shouldn't get a cent.

Flood defences don't work as plenty of towns in the UK have found out.

Trent Houseboat

wrote:

Custardpi The obvious solution, as every decent business person knows is not to see the floods as a crisis but rather an opportunity. For instance, instead of moaning about a bit of water in Enniscorthy why not embrace it & rebrand the town as "The Venice of South Eastern Ireland". This will save on expensive flood repairs (the water will be left there), while providing exciting potential for tourism.

Venniscorthy?

kierank01

snubbleste wrote: »

Ban precipitation!

tax precipitation

KwackerJack

We should go back in time and change the way we destroyed and changed the land.....then we would have no issues with flooding

twowheelsonly

Dredging the rivers would be a good start.

Don't know how true it is but I read somewhere recently that the Shannon hadn't been dredged since the Brits left town?? If that's true it's crazy.

Some one of our overlords recently said that dredging wouldn't make enough of a difference to make it worthwhile. I call BS on that.. If you can dredge thousands and thousands of cubic metres from a riverbed then that's thousands and thousands of cubic metres that the water can flow into to ease the pressure on the land and floodplains.

When I was growing up the River Lee seemed to have a constant dredging program going on and floods were certainly a lot less frequent and a lot less widespread than now. They still happened, but they also drained off faster.

wil

Eireglades

Introduce alligators and expand the hovercraft to work scheme.

BattleCorp

That idea that the people of the Wesht don't like might work. That's the one where they propose to pump floodwater from the Shannon and store it in a reservoir in the midlands to help supply Dublin with water.

It would certainly help alleviate some of the flooding. Although given the volume of water coming down the flooded Shannon, it would want to be one hell of a big pipe.

Would the EU allow large scale dredging of the rivers? Impact on fish/wildlife etc.?

While flood defenses are good, even with an unlimited budget, we can't protect everywhere.

smash

BattleCorp wrote: »

While flood defenses are good, even with an unlimited budget, we can't protect everywhere.

Survival of the fittest! :pac:

syklops

Del2005 wrote: »

Designate areas of land that can be flooded instead of trying to stop the flooding, if necessary pay the private landowners compensation but state bodies shouldn't get a cent.
.

We have designated aeas of land hat can be flooded. Only people keep building houses on them.

smash

syklops wrote: »

We have designated aeas of land hat can be flooded. Only people keep building houses on them.

Great photo going around social media last week of a plot around 4ft under water with a sign sticking out saying "Planning permission approved for luxury housing development" or something like that.