Bandon Flood experience Nov 2009: A chronology of events, the forces of nature and bad planning

On 19th Nov 2009 the town of Bandon, Co. Cork experienced the worst flooding in living memory which resulted in approximately 190 business properties being flooded or affected in the town. This has devastated the area and caused significant financial hardship but thankfully no lives were lost. The flooding was the result of unusually high amounts of rainfall falling on an already saturated catchment. The month of November 2009 was exceptionally wet with many places experiencing in the first fortnight one and a half to two times the normal rainfall for the whole month. Valentia Observatory recorded 57.4mm of rainfall on the 19th November with Cork Airport recording 51.2mm and many other places receiving in excess of 30mm. Taken alone, this was a very wet day by any standards but with the ground already saturated by heavy rain over the preceding days, the effect was made worse.

As a result water levels in the River Bandon rose by approximately 4 meters and to such an extent that some temporary flood defenses were overtopped especially in the Caufield and lidl Supermarket area where an embankment was holding back subsequent flood waters which had accumulated in the area. Both these developments were constructed on a known flood sink for the River Bandon catchment area, development included importation of a large amount of fill to raise the ground level, the construction of a flood embankment and a large car park . The embankment would have an effect of raising the water level in the river and on adjacent lands upstream. In Bandon River further downstream the water level rose above the arches in the bridge, resulting in further raising of the river level as flood waters backed up. The huge volume of floodwaters exceeded the capacity of the drainage systems resulting in a small number of properties being flooded by surface water as the drains backed up and the water could not escape. Minor localized flooding started to occur around noon on Pearse Street and surface water was observed overflowing the drainage system on Weir street at 14:00hrs.

A large volume of flood waters accumulated alongside the Lidl development, which even in its construction was partially flooded in 2007. The embankment acted as a levee which on the afternoon of the 19th November breeched, flooding Lidl, the car park, Caulfield supermarket and contributing significantly to the flooding of Bandon town in particular South Main Street, McSweeney Quay, Weir Street and Factory Lane. The effect was similar to a dam breech, flooding everything in its path.

Brideswell River a tributary of the Bandon River further contributed to flooding as it was not able to release water into the Bandon River where the water level rose above the bridge arch on Bridge Street. As a consequence the stream channel was unable to accommodate any further waters causing this stream to breech contributing further to flooding Market Quay, Bridge street, Oliver Plunket Street, Brady’s Lane and Market Quay. On the north side of the river North Main street flooded as surface flood waters were not able to discharge into the Bandon River and waters levels rose to flood a number of business premises.

Over the course of the next few hours water levels rose in the town, flooding the road infrastructure in particular the cork road. In all approximately 190 businesses were affected by the disaster. Dozens of elderly had to be evacuated from social housing projects and no warnings were given to businesses or at risk developments. Local authority and emergency agencies were caught out by the scale and speed of the incident. Garda did not appreciate the severity of the incident as the Garda headquarters was flooded and evacuated, 15 cars were stranded within the Garda compound. It is apparent that inadequate provision was given to the provision of sandbags or emergency pumps or heavy equipment to divert floodwaters. The design and construction of the flood embankment at Caulfield supermarket did not meet the requirements to keep flood waters at bay.

There appeared to be a lack of clarity over the command and control of the disaster operation, with some agencies coming too late, with poor facilities to provide any adequate support. Communication difficulties were evident as telephone communications failed, the local telephone exchange being flooded and mobile telecommunications failed as the electricity was turned off to receivers. Technology was turned on its head as communications were passed by word of mouth. All the banking institutions were flooded and with no power or telephones no one was able to use credit cars, withdraw money or use bank cards in the town for four days. The two major supermarkets were flooded and closed along with many small shops, restaurants, butchers, clothing shops and newsagents. This was a close as one could get to a media and communication blackout. New Orleans had come to West Cork.