‘A very tough year’: Homes and businesses in Cork still reeling after Storm Babet one year on

A Glanmire woman whose family home was devastated by flooding caused by Storm Babet has spoken of the ordeal of putting it back together during what was a “very tough year”.

Aisling McEvoy lives with her husband Dominic and three children in Copper Valley Vue, a housing development which bore the brunt of flooding in the village one year ago.

Storm Babet also ravaged the town of Midleton, and after 40 years trading in the town, Sally O’Brien of the Farmgate Cafe had to move and re-establish her business in Lismore.

“Mum and I had built up and invested in the business for over 40 years,” Sally said.

“I grew up in Farmgate Midleton and I was incredibly proud of it. Leaving Midleton was like a bereavement for us. We had to start over.

“We walked out with sculptures and a handful of paintings. There was a huge shock factor with the realisation that Farmgate Midleton was finished.”

Homes and businesses across Cork were left with significant flood damage after Storm Babet in mid-October last year, with Midleton and Glanmire among the worst-hit areas.

Glanmire

In the immediate aftermath of Storm Babet, Aisling McEvoy told The Echo of how quickly the storm had hit Copper Valley Vue in Glanmire, and her home, and its devastating impact.

“At 9.15am there was what I would call a puddle on the road just outside the estate; by 9.45am I could see that the water couldn’t pass under the bridge that was there and it was starting to come out onto the road and another half an hour after that it was coming into my house,” she said.

“I think we were the first house it hit. It was very fast and vicious; it was like a tsunami. It was surreal.”

This left the downstairs of their home under two or three feet of water, the kitchen and living room significantly water-damaged; furniture and electrical appliances had to be thrown out, and the wall cut back to be allowed to dry out.

The family had to spend the next two months living upstairs as their house dried out and, like many others, they feared yellow and orange rain warnings in case they would be flooded again.

One of the issues faced by the McEvoys, along with other households in the development, is lack of insurance.

Because there had been flooding previously in 2015, and because a flood relief scheme had not been put in place, they could not get flood insurance for their home, which left them depending on a humanitarian scheme set up by the Department of Social Protection.

The fund was designed to be paid out in three stages, including an initial payment of around €1,000 for basic kitchen essentials and a second payment to cover the replacement of white goods such as washing machines, dryers, cookers, and dishwashers. This was to be paid on the production of an invoice. The final payment was aimed at covering structural repairs.

Applicants for the humanitarian aid, however, faced a number of obstacles. The form to access it was around 20 pages long and demanded pay slips and bank statements as well as quotations from registered builders for the work to be completed. In many cases, the builders were busy doing work for customers whose bills would be covered by insurance, which meant that families who were not covered had to rely on handymen and do patch-up jobs, or builders to come in after work and do jobs for cash, thus providing no receipts which could be submitted for claims under the fund.

In the case of the McEvoys, as for many other families impacted by Storm Babet, the final bill for what they could have done, had they been able to get insurance, was tens of thousands more than the amount they eventually received from the humanitarian fund.

“The difference between when you’re insured and not insured is when you’re insured you can rip everything out and fix it, whereas when you’re not insured, it’s much more of a patch-up job.

“We’ve a couch and a floor down and the TV is up but any furniture and lamps, things that you’d have around the house making it a home, they’re still not back,” she said. “That’s unrealistic to think that you’re going to put 20 years of things that you’ve saved to buy back into your house — you can’t.

“We’re grateful of course for the help we got from the scheme and the flood relief plan, but just the extra stress of it and the impact of the way it was rolled out really.

“The flood relief scheme that was meant to have been done a few years back is actually well under way now. That was supposed to take three years but they have actually sped that up now and that’s brilliant — it definitely gave us peace of mind last weekend [during the latest status-orange rain alert].”

The work is ongoing in Glanmire, and for that Aisling and her family are extremely grateful.

Having survived a significant rainfall test last weekend, they can look forward with more confidence after years of living dangerously in Glanmire.

Midleton

Meanwhile, Mayor of the County of Cork, Councillor Joe Carroll, welcomed funding for a new flood mitigation scheme for properties in Midleton and East Cork that flooded during Storm Babet.

Kieran O’Donnell, minister of state with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, announced €5.8m in funding for Cork County Council to install individual property protection measures for some 920 home and business owners.

“I am glad that some help and support has been afforded to the people of Midleton affected by the floods of last year,” said Sally O’Brien of the Farmgate Cafe.

“When we were flooded in 2018, we were promised in the wake of the flood that flood prevention measures were going to be put in place.

“We had stressed how crucial flood barriers would be for the town because once you flood you can’t get insurance.

“We and other businesses knew if we were flooded again, it would jeopardise the re-opening of the business.

“And that’s just what happened to Farmgate and many other traders, and indeed homeowners.”

Ms O’Brien said they would still be trading in Midleton if the fear of a reoccurrence wasn’t there.

“We had no choice but to move to another location,” she said. “We had survived covid, and serious flooding in 2018. There was no comeback from this.

“We had installed a new informal cocktail bar in January 2023 for people who liked to meet casually without dining. Over the years our family have invested hundreds of thousands of euro into the business. We had no intention of going anywhere.

“That decision was taken from us. My mother was devastated.”

With livelihoods and jobs at stake; it was make-your-mind-up time.

“We had to make a fast decision said Sally. “There were bills to be paid; people to look after. I think after the horrific event and the complete shock, adrenaline kicked in and we had to move fast to reopen Farmgate in Lismore, where we were warmly welcomed.”

There was no going back.

“Our building in Coolbawn, Midleton, was totally destroyed by Storm Babet,” Sally said. “The Government treated us shockingly at the time.”

How did she keep going after such traumatic events that drove her from the town she loved so well?

“After two months the tiredness hit me,” Sally said. “It was just like a bereavement, that Midleton was finished. The shock factor was huge; it was horrific. I was upset for my team.”

Starting over somewhere new can be a risky business, but Lismore has welcomed the Farmgate enterprise and its culinary reputation.

“We were really well received here,” said Sally. “We are in the middle of nowhere and in the centre of everywhere. People come from Cork, Tipperary, and Waterford. And from Midleton of course.”

Sometimes Storm Babet seems like a bad dream for Sally.

“It is hard to believe that in a blink of an eye everything you’ve known and worked at can be wiped out,” said Sally. “I think 2023 was the worst year of my life.”