Storm Babet: Barber says fast-rising water flooded Midleton shop in 15 minutes

Claudia Savage, PA

A business owner in Midleton, Co Cork, has described how water in his shop was “up to his knees” in just 15 minutes due to flooding from Storm Babet.

Firat 'Freddie' Uygun is the owner of the Fresh ‘n’ Freddie barbershop on Main Street in the town which was severely damaged by floods.

Counties Cork and Waterford were worst hit, with some areas still underwater on Thursday morning.

The Army and Civil Defence units supported evacuation measures in Midleton, as more than a month’s worth of rain fell in the space of 24 hours.

Mr Uygun said the intense rain caused his premises to flood extremely quickly.

“Yesterday it was raining all day and then I was just walking around the town and I saw the autopark got flooded and I was running to let the people know, like my friend’s car was in that, in the autopark, and we were saving up the cars,” he said.

“When I came back to my shop I saw the water was rising up in the back of the shop and then straight away I went to call up to get some sandbags.

“When I went back, literally 20 to 15 minutes, everything happened in 15 minutes. When I went back, the water was up to my knees all of a sudden, and then I saw the flooring was floating on the water.”

As of Thursday morning, a number of homes and business were still without electricity.

Mr Uygun said he hoped to be operational again by the weekend but that extended work would be needed to repair the flood damage.

“A couple of the lads are helping me just to get rid of the flooring first,” he said.

“We put all the debris here on the footpath, we are waiting on the council to send the skips, which they will send eventually, hopefully.

“We will just get rid of the debris and clean the shop and plan to get back in business on Saturday.

“Because this part is grand, I can still work because it’s just a barbershop for the chairs, and keep going as long as I have electricity, which I don’t at the moment.

“And then by the coming weeks I will try to get the shop fixed slowly and then everything will be grand, hopefully.”

Mr Uygun said his business insurance did not cover flooding for his area.

“They said that we did not cover for the Midleton area. I said what’s the point of paying it then,” he said.

“Like I have public liability insurance, tradesman insurance, I have all add-ons but it still does not cover flooding. Which is ridiculous.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government will provide support through humanitarian schemes to help those impacted by flooding.

Mr Uygun said the Government should arrange grants for business owners to help with the costs of damage from the storm.

“They set an orange warning days before they knew it was going to happen eventually, but they did not do anything,” he said.

“Drains were full of mud, drains did not do their job as they should have done.”