It may take two years to repair bridges damaged by Storm Babet in Cork
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It could take up to 2026 before all bridges in county Cork which were washed away or structurally damaged by Storm Babet are either replaced or repaired.
That’s the magnitude of the potential damage caused to bridges, never mind roads, according to Niall Healy, the county council’s director of roads and transportation.
The senior council official said that while damage is very obvious in the case of some bridges, it will take quite a bit of time to structurally assess all of them throughout the county which may have been impacted by the October 18 deluge.
Council engineers are still overstretched assessing the extensive damage caused by the violent storm and it is estimated it will cost well in excess of €50m just to repairs roads torn up by it. More than half of that damage occurred in the East Cork region.
But the final bill for the entire county is likely to be far more when engineers finally get to complete their assessments, especially on stone-built bridges, some of which are hundreds of years old and listed as protected structures.
That’s because continuing high river and stream levels have made it almost impossible for engineers to examine the bases of bridges and assess what structural damage may have occurred to them.
“We won’t get a proper handle on that until the water levels goes down (probably in the spring). It may well be 2025 or even into 2026 when all the work will be completed (on them),” Mr Healy said.
He said the local authority is preparing a series of priority work packages worth up to €6m which it can carry out to damaged roads in the first quarter of 2024.
However, the remainder of the funding for the costly storm repairs will be dependent on central government providing the bulk of it as the cash-strapped local authority simply doesn’t have the money to do it on its own.
Discussions are taking place between Cork County Council and various government departments about funding and senior county council officials have indicated a positive result is the most likely outcome.
Meanwhile, council officials are continuing to assess damage to bridges in the greater Midleton area and are in talks with IFI (Inland Fisheries Ireland) about dredging water courses which have become clogged with silt and other debris washed downstream into the town during the storm.
In some cases, particularly near the town’s Moore’s Bridge, gravel washdown has torn away sections of the river bank.
Council engineers said according to IFI removing debris deposits, especially silt, from the rivers running through Midleton is "so sensitive” to wildlife that the local authority will have to get permission for such works from the Department of Environment.