Midleton businesses: A year on from floods in East Cork town

It took just four minutes for the homes and businesses of Midleton to flood during Storm Babet last October.

What started as a morning of heavy rain, turned to disaster before anyone could stop it.

One year on, business owners reflect on rebuilding what was lost, with the support of their community.

Hope to keep going

Eleanor Dunlea, of Lollipop Kids shoe shop, remembers when the flood hit.

“It was like looking at a television programme. It happened so quickly,” she says.

The following day, Eleanor arrived at the shop to see all the stock she had placed up high had fallen to the ground due to the force of the water. The local community wasted no time in rallying around to help her.

“The community spirit that day really would give you a bit of hope to keep going,” she says.

Eleanor’s shop was closed for 10 weeks while she repaired the damage and replaced stock. During that time, the support from the local children gave her a much-needed boost.

“I put a promotion in the window that children would draw pictures, just to take the gloom and doom away from the shop window,” she says.

The amount of pictures I got. I have them all, I wouldn’t dump them in a million years. They meant so much to me.

Eleanor reopened on a Saturday, with a new Christmas window.

“The Saturday morning that I opened was just something else,” says Eleanor. “It was just, ‘yes, I’m back’.”

Business has been good, but the fear of being flooded again looms over Eleanor.

“In July or August there was a yellow weather warning,” she says. “The floodgates are up, but no matter what gate you put up, you’re looking at your cameras at 12 o’clock at night.”

Although it’s been a tough year, Eleanor feels lucky compared to those whose homes flooded.

“I could close my door that Thursday afternoon, see my business gone in a skip. But people’s homes, I feel so sorry for them,” she says.

She remembers a customer coming into the shop a few months ago whose home had been flooded.

“She started crying and I sat down and started crying with her,” says Eleanor.

Despite the challenges the last year has presented, Eleanor is determined to keep doing the work she loves.

“You’ve got to dig deep,” she says. 

Seeing a little child going out my door happy is worth anything.

As storm season approaches, Eleanor wants to see more done to prevent future flooding.

“There needs to be something to prevent it,” she says. “These are people’s homes and livelihoods. We’re paying big rates here in Midleton, and you’d like to see something being done.”

We won’t let it defeat us

Rachel McCarthy, of Ina McCarthy for Flowers, recalls the damage the flood caused to the family-run florist.

“We had two big store rooms with loads of wedding stock. I had all of my Christmas stock sitting on the floor. I had a year and a half’s worth of branded boxes,” she says. “Pretty much everything was destroyed.”

The clean-up operation started the next morning, with the help of Rachel’s family, team, and local volunteers.

“It was just amazing,” says Rachel. “By the end of that day, it was actually nearly a working shop again.”

Rachel and her team needed to reopen quickly.

“It wasn’t a thing of ‘close the doors and we’ll do this over a week or two’,” she explains. 

I had a wedding the next day, and I had two later that week, so I had to get the shop back up and running.

Although the shop was open within a day, it took longer to fully recover. Cleaning continued for several weeks, and they closed for two weeks at Christmas to replace the solid wood floors.

“It literally took until last month to get the shop back to normal,” she says.

The cost of the damage was significant.

“For what I could account for and get paperwork for, it was €87,000,” says Rachel. Their insurance didn’t cover flooding, but they got €40,000 though the Irish Red Cross Emergency Food Relief Scheme.

It’s stock that I’ve built up over a very, long time, and it’s very expensive. To lose all of that overnight was really difficult.

Rachel and her team have recently been busy with weddings, and the shop has continued to thrive.

“Midleton’s a really great town, and despite this happening, we’ve amazing customers that come back to us on a regular basis,” she says.

She would like to see new businesses coming to the town.

“It was definitely hard losing some of our big restaurants,” says Rachel. “It would be nice to get a few more businesses back on the main street.”

Even after a tough time, Rachel believes Midleton still shines.

“I love that come Christmas or somebody’s birthday, I don’t have to go beyond Midleton,” she says. “We’ve got bakeries, we’ve got butchers, we’ve got clothes shops, we’ve got gift shops.”

Because the shop is in an old building, there’s no way to keep water out in future.

Rachel and her team are prepared for whatever comes their way.

“If it happens again, we will just try to pick everything up and sweep out the shop and just get back in business,” says Rachel. “We won’t let it defeat us.”

Like a bad dream

Lisa O’Brien is the owner of Monty’s café, right next to the river in Midleton.

“It was nearly the deepest part of it, where the water rose the highest,” says Lisa. “We still have a mark on the [coffee] grinder where it came up to. When you look at that, it just seems like a bad dream.”

Less than three years ago, Lisa had the interior of the café redesigned. Having all that ruined was a hard blow.

“When you spend so much money, you expect to get another 10 years or so out of it,” she says. “But it all had to come out.”

Despite the damage, Lisa and her team were able to open up again after a week. Her family, staff and local community were a huge support.

“It was just unreal, the amount of offers of help that we got,” says Lisa. 

My family and friends, and the regular customers as well, coming in just buying a cup of coffee every day, that’s what keeps us going, that makes the difference.

She did have to close the doors for two weeks during April, as the whole interior needed to be fully replaced.

“The walls had to be taken out too and we had to get a new floor. Every single thing inside there had to come out,” she says.

Recovering from the flood has been an additional challenge on top of what the hospitality sector is already facing.

“With the VAT and inflation, everything going up all the time, it’s hard anyway in that kind of business,” says Lisa. “But then you had the addition of having to be closed and then having extra payments.”

As winter approaches, Lisa is worried about what’s to come.

With climate change, it’s not a question of if it’s going to happen again, it’s just a question of when.

She is encouraged to see some work has been undertaken by Cork County Council this year, including the removal of Moore’s Bridge, the removal of gravel deposits from the river bed, removal of overhanging trees along the riverbank, and a survey of drains in the town centre.

As for the future, Lisa is looking forward to celebrating 10 years in business next year.

“Coming into the 10th year now, we just want to keep going, keep serving people,” she says. “We just want to continue doing what we love.”