Flood water nightmare for homeowners

Added to the deluge which fell last week, the combined effect of the surface water brought down walls and garden fences, flooded homes, and ruined belongings in garages and sheds and destroyed flooring.

As the mop-up began yesterday among the worst effected areas were Artigarvan, Donemana, Drumahoe and Newbuildings.

A wall collapsed on Leckpatrick Road under the weight of hundreds of gallons of debris-filled water which had gathered in the dip on the road, which cascaded through a private garden, forcing its way around the building, into the house owned by Melanie Hayes. It also went through the garden shed, damaged the wooden fence at the side of the dwelling, warped the ornate wrought iron gates to the front, stripping the garden of ornaments and gravel as it passed and moving the railway sleepers which Ms Hayes had used as decorative edging.

Inside the water seeped under the wooden flooring downstairs and destroyed the entire contents of the children’s play room as well as a laptop and a new electric heater for the fireplace which had been bought for her by her mother.

“My neighbour Tom come to me at about 7pm and alerted me to the water on the road. We walked from my yard to the corner of the road and Tom shouted at me to run because the wall had just given way. Well, I just ran back to the house because the two girls were in the house on their own,” she said as she surveyed the damage to her garden.

“I think the only things still standing in the garden are the apple tree and the pear tree,” she said laughing in disbelief at the devastation.

“If you don’t laugh you cry,” she said before paying tribute to the many folk who had turned up to help those worst effected by the flooding.

“Inside and outside my house are built up with sandbags at the doors, but the water still seeped in, all I have is leaves and worms. It’s heartbreaking but what can you do? The fridge freezer in the shed is ruined and so is the food inside, the children’s bicycles are ruined, all the wooden blocks I got in for the winter just floated off on me. The water even shifted the railway sleepers and moved the shed. My daughter’s playhouse ended up in a neighbour’s garden and the toy Range Rover was found in another garden. Both are destroyed,” she said.

John Donnell, a DUP councillor, who visited the area to offer support, said: I call on the relevant authorities to do all they can to help these people and look into the cause of how this happened to ensure that it does not happen again.”

He continued: “When these houses were given planning permission why was this nothighlighted? This area used to be a glen and the natural slope of the road was the slope of the hill. The glen was filled in and the houses were built on it. The planners should have looked into this more closely.”

With the collapse of the wall the rainwater ran in a torrent down the private housing development into the front garden of Gareth Robb, where it ground out the gravel drive and pooled in front of the house. The speed with which the flood cam shocked him.

“My wife had just gone to the chip shop and within five minutes there was a man at my door asking me if I was alright. The water was just running down the road, and this only took place in the space of minutes.

“I had to pull some of the boards away from the fence to let the water escape because the water was just getting too close to the house,” he said.

Despite this, much of the gravel on the drive was lost, and deep gouges were created by the force of the swirl of water.

Meanwhile, as last week’s deluge caused many motorists and homeowners difficulty, one man battling to protect his home fell and broke his arm trying to save his garden and garage.

Despite this, Alan Guthrie, from Silverbrook Park in Newbuildings, was out again on Monday night, deploying sandbags and knocking a hole in his garden wall to try and relieve the build-up of water in the back garden which threatened to enter his house.

“This has been going on for about 20 years. We had rain here last Monday too and that’s when I fell and broke my arm. I cannot keep anything in the garage because of the flooding,” he said.

His nextdoor neighbour David Doherty has also had recurring flood problems.

“I am reasonably lucky that my property is sloped, but the water messes the house and the yard, but the water is all through the garage. The field in behind us was earmarked for development, but no one ever built anything on it, so instead of having proper drainage the runoff in coming into our gardens,” he said.

Among the many councillors and Aldermen who went out in horrendous conditions to help beleaguered residents was Gary Middleton, who said the flood issue in Newbuildings had been a constant fixture of wet weather for many years.

“The water running down Alan’s back garden yesterday and last week was like a waterfall. The last time I was out with Alan he fell and broke his arm because the place was like a swamp,” Mr Middleton said, adding: “This is a constant problem and I am looking to Roads Service to ensure that the drainage systems are kept clear.”

Yesterday, Tuesday, he put forward a motion at the meeting of the full council calling for the council to get assurances from both Roads Service and NI Water to implement preparations to prevent the same chaos from re-occurring in terms both the floods and the string of arctic winters recently experienced.

A Roads Service spokesperson said the Roads Service “had no issues” in the Leckpatrick Road area.