Donegal County Council are still coming to terms with the scale of the operation needed to bring the county back to working order after the devastating floods.
Brendan O’Donnell, a Senior Engineer with Donegal County Council, said the council are not yet able to count the costs of the damage in Inishowen and other areas. He said today that any estimate put on the cost of the damage would be wrong.
“We are still getting our heads around the scale of the damage,” O’ Donnell told RTE’s Morning Ireland.
The council are continuing to get reports from around the county of impassable secondary routes where smaller bridges have collapsed.
O’Donnell said it will take time to take an inventory of the damage across Donegal’s 6,500km road network. He said the county council Roads Department alone will be unable to fund the repairs.
O’Donnell pointed out that the government have been supportive in the past in providing financial assistance in such extreme events.
After local residents expressed their dismay yesterday that they had no assistance on the night of the flood, O’Donnell said that DCC’s Housing Engineer has now made contact with most residents.
“The scale of the problem, the scale of the impact across Donegal has stretched our resources considerably,” he said.
Emergency services, fire services and roads crews were working again through the night on Wednesday to try and address the major impact. Meetings held into the night also aimed to address sources of additional support, he said.
A past study by the Office of Public Works showed an area of Burnfoot with 21 properties had been identified as being at risk and essential flood defences were proposed.
However, it was determined that the cost of completing flood defence schemes would be more than the cost of the damages that might arise in a worst-case scenario flood.
This report, in May 2017, estimated that flood damage could cost over €1million euro in the particular area.
O’Donnell said in light of this week’s events, the OPW assessments may need to be revisited.
