Fresh rain warning for Cork as Storm Babet clean-up begins

During this time, Met Éireann is warning of "heavy bursts of rain or showers" coupled with "waterlogged soils and high river levels". 

This is likely to lead to further localised flooding in affected areas and hazardous driving conditions, the forecaster said.

It comes as six residents of the Owenacurra mental health facility in Midleton had to be evacuated to the Midleton Park Hotel on Wednesday night as a result of flooding in the town.

There had also been a plan to evacuate Midleton Community Hospital's 30 or so patients, but flooding within the building and in the wider area was so heavy that ambulances could not reach it.

Hospital management then took the decision to relocate the patients to an adjoining facility, where they stayed overnight. It is understood that a decision on whether to evacuate the patients on Thursday will be made later this morning.

Chief officer for the Cork Kerry Community Health Care, Tess O’Donovan, said Wednesday was a difficult day for the hospital and for Midleton.

"We had back-up generators in place and we had power and heat, but obviously a very difficult time for the residents and for their families that are worried about them," she said. 

Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland, she commended the efforts of the members of the team at the hospital, as well as all of the other people who came to their assistance. 

She said that assessment of the flood damage done to both Midleton Community Hospital and Owenacurra will also get underway this morning.

"The flood damage is significant. We need to assess that further. But we will be assessing this morning to see if we can move the patients," she said.

"If we can't, we will look at an alternative arrangement for a period of time to help assess the damage and to hopefully restore them back as soon as we can to where they were.

"Alternative arrangements will have to be made for daycare centres in the area which will not be able to open today."

'The town hasn’t seen anything like this in 400 years'

Midleton Fire station officer Mark Sinclair has said that Wednesday's floods had devastated the town.

"I'm born and bred in the town, I've seen many a flood, but none of this capacity. We helped as much as we could and tried to get as many people to safety as possible."

He said station crews were still going around the town checking on people to see if they need help.

"A lot of the shops have no insurance because it‘s a flood zone, the town hasn’t seen anything like this in 400 years," he said.

Mr Sinclair explained that heavy rain had led to saturated ground, which coincided with a high tide and further torrential rain, causing the river to burst its banks.

"Numerous calls came in during the day [Wednesday]. I think it was 11 o'clock that the river burst its banks, then by 2pm there was pure devastation," he told the same programme.

"The main street was like a river."

Met Éireann's extreme weather categories

Also on Morning Ireland, Met Éireann meteorologist Eoin Sherlock said that the methods by which the forecaster categorises extreme weather situations will have to change because of the impact of climate change. 

Mr Sherlock explained that the current coloured alert categories—yellow, orange, and red—were based on the “last round” of climate averages which dates from 1991 to 2020.

“What we do every 30 years, we look at the climate every 10 years, we look at the climate averages. And what that means is we look at what's happened over the last 30 years. So that's 1991 to 2020."

However, Mr Sherlock said that the evidence was unequivocal that the climate had changed. 

We've got warmer, you've got this and the temperatures increased by point seven degrees since the last round of climate averages in the last 10 years, we can expect more extreme rainfall because the temperature has increased.

“So what we're doing now is we're looking at the kind of the threshold that we have for the warnings, we are going to change them as a reflection of what's happening in the climate," he said. 

Mr Sherlock gave the example that yellow wind warnings of 50 kilometres would change to 55 kilometres per hour. He pointed out Met Éireann had warned about flooding and difficult driving conditions which was a trend in the meteorological world.

“Basically it’s trying to inform the public about what the weather will do rather than—because maybe people don't understand—what an 80 kilometres per hour wind can do. But if we can inform people that there's going to be flooding, they can take the necessary steps."

He explained that there was only "one or two millimetres difference between an orange rainfall warning and a red." 

So I think maybe as an education piece for Met Éireann ourselves, we have to be a little bit better in this area.

Mr Sherlock said Met Éireann currently issued warnings based on best guidance from two models, one Irish, and one European drawn from international collaborations. 

He also said that future weather warnings would be about what the weather will do rather than what the weather will be.

Some Cork roads still impassable as clean-up continues 

As clean-up operations continued across Cork on Thursday morning, a number of roads remained impassable around the county.

Surface water is still present around Glanmire, which was badly impacted by Wednesday's floods. The Lower Glanmire Road approaching the Cork City suburb is still closed to traffic.

The R630 road from East Ferry to Ballinacurra is also closed, while floodwater is still present on the Banduff Road. 

The road from Two Mile Inn to Mogeely is also still flooded, while Mogeely village is also impassable.

The N25 at Castlemartyr is now flowing via a Stop/Go system, and motorists have been advised to take care on approach.

Cork County Council has urged motorists to be aware of standing water and damage to roads around Cork. Drivers have been urged to be especially conscious of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.

Closer to Cork City, the R579 and the Lee Road, which had been closed, have reopened.

The Centre Park Road, which was impassable for much of the day on Wednesday, has partially re-opened to traffic.

Rail services between Kent Station and Midleton have resumed on Thursday afternoon. Services from Kent to Cobh have also resumed. 

In a statement, Iarnród Éireann said the line has re-opened between Cork/Carrigtwohill. However, bus connections remain in place between Midleton-Carrigtwohill until further notice.

Meanwhile, a number of customers have seen interruptions to their water supply in Midleton, Kilbehenny village and parts of North Michelstown due to the shutdown of water treatment plants in those areas due to Storm Babet. 

Water service engineers from Uisce Éireann are currently at the scene of Midleton Water Treatment and Michelstown Water Treatment to get the plants back into operation as soon as possible. 

Customers in the area may experience low pressure and/or interruptions to their water supply.