Sarah Harte: We must learn from past floods how to live in this new reality of climate change

Floods are now the most common and most costly natural disasters in Europe. Climate change is accelerating their occurrence. And, with much of our residential, industrial, and transport infrastructure near rivers that frequently flood, Ireland urgently needs a functioning flood forecasting and warning capability and flood prevention measures.

Examining how authorities interact

So it’s worth examining how our authorities both preempted and responded to last week’s flooding.

One question is how our various bodies communicated with one another in such an acute situation. There are so many moving parts in these emergencies. It would seem optimal that those which assess the weather and issue warnings (Met Éireann), co-ordinate with those that monitor water levels of rivers (the OPW) and those which clear drains (the local authorities).

If we look at what unfolded in Midleton, persistent gaps in our current system emerge.

Last Wednesday, an orange weather warning was in place for Cork County. This orange weather warning was never upgraded to red status despite the unprecedented rainfall. 

Frank O’Flynn, the mayor of Co Cork, has called for an investigation into the matter.

The warning that River Owenacurra might burst its banks came via an email from the traders’ association in Midleton at 10.30am Wednesday, followed by an email from the Chamber of Commerce just after noon saying officials had spoken to the country engineer that morning who had relayed “a worry” that the Owenacurra would flood, warning businesses to take precautions. By this time, it was too late to get sandbags.

You could say that no amount of preparation could have lessened the damage in last week’s flood but it is clear that the current warning system needs updating.

In 2016, the government announced that Met Éireann, in collaboration with the Office of Public Works (OPW), would establish a national flood forecasting and warnings service to forecast for fluvial and coastal floods. Seven years later, this appears to be still in development.

Met Éireann has also acknowledged that how it categorises extreme weather events must change to take in climate change. Future weather warnings will be about what the weather will do rather than what the weather will be.

The council’s response was also questioned, with claims in Midleton that as the torrential rain fell the drains were visibly blocked.

In the aftermath of the 2015 floods in Midleton, traders flagged how the drains in the town had been blocked, leaving the water with nowhere to go.

However, Cork County Council acting chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan told a council meeting on Monday that the drains and gullies in Midleton had been cleared in recent weeks and checked again when the orange warning was issued.

She said the drainage system was overwhelmed by an unprecedented 100mm of rain and that nothing could have saved the town apart from the planned flood relief project.

The absence of flood prevention measures, eight years after the last flood in Midleton, is undoubtedly the larger issue, as alluded to by O’Sullivan.

Midleton’s flood relief scheme has not yet gone to planning, with 2025 mooted as a possible start date.

Planning system is at fault

Meanwhile, in Wexford, the flood defence scheme for Enniscorthy, where repeated flooding has damaged the commercial life of the town, is still far off after 47 years of discussion.

The frustrating part is that it’s not a matter of funding — the money is there. The problem, according to the Government, is the planning system and the volume of objections.

During a visit to Midleton, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said while schemes have been built, some get stuck in the planning pipeline, admitting there is often “a lot of opposition” to flood relief schemes on environmental grounds.

This brings us to the question of insurance because flood insurance is one of the key indicators of a community’s flood resilience.

Private sector insurance

Many of those flooded in Midleton didn’t have insurance coverage because they had been flooded before. That’s how the private insurance cookie crumbles. One strike and you’re debarred from getting cover.

It seems extraordinary that we continue to allow private insurance companies pick and choose who they will cover.

A glaring issue is that the Government has continued to allow insurance companies to refuse cover in flood-affected areas even where the OPW has carried out remedial work, which is essentially blatant discrimination.

Insurance companies have reportedly refused to engage with the OPW and used OPW maps not meant for commercial purposes to refuse cover to households and businesses.

Cobbling together flood relief schemes after the fact is not the solution.

Without an adequate insurance scheme, communities get repeatedly hit with devastating effects.

It has been reported in the Irish Examiner that businesses could be in line for payments of up to €100,000 under a new scheme to be administered by the Red Cross. But many business owners warned both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste when they visited last week that the sums on offer won’t be nearly enough to get them up and running again.

Adapting insurance to the new reality

Meanwhile, in Europe, some countries have adapted their insurance arrangements as it becomes evident that we will have more and not less flooding.

France is the frontrunner internationally in dealing with the problem of flooding and insurance. It has a mandatory insurance scheme which guarantees that all those who have insurance will be automatically insured against natural disasters. It provides state-guaranteed reinsurance by way of a centralised company. Essentially, it has socialised the risk or the harmful consequences of that risk. It’s another route that the Government here could consider.

In reality, many of these businesses and homes will flood again. Maynooth University’s Icarus Climate Research Centre has published a paper reporting that weather stations across the country are experiencing substantial increases in winter rainfall per degree of global warming.

The writing is on the wall. This problem isn’t going away.

We have work to do, and fast, including implementing the planned national flood forecasting, updating the warning service, building the flood relief projects, and solving the insurance question.

Climate change is here to stay. Events such as last week’s are here to stay, so we need to consider how past floods shape our future.