Flood cleanup continues as further weather warning issued

Gusts of up to 100km forecasted for tonight and tomorrow morning

Local man Ger Hogan and his horse ferries people in and out of Saint Mary’s Park in Limerick yesterday after the River Shannon burst its banks. Photograph: Sean Curtin
Local man Ger Hogan and his horse ferries people in and out of Saint Mary’s Park in Limerick yesterday after the River Shannon burst its banks. Photograph: Sean Curtin

As parts of the country deal with the aftermath of yesterday's flooding, Met Éireann has issued a status orange alert for counties Dublin, Louth, Wexford, Wicklow, Meath, Cork, Kerry and Waterford with winds of up to 70km per hour predicted this afternoon and gusts of up to 100km per hour forecasted overnight and tomorrow morning.

The strongest winds will be in coastal areas with strong onshore winds occuring at the same time as high tides and this may cause some coastal flooding. There will also be some very heavy falls of rain.

Orange weather warnings are issued for weather conditions which have the capacity to have a significant impact on people in affected areas.

Several parts of the country including Limerick and Galway are continuing with recovery efforts after serious flooding yesterday.

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Parts of Limerick city such as St Mary’s Park were inundated with water to levels of 4ft due to a combination of strong winds and high tide.

Many people had to be evacuated from their homes, with the Defence Forces called in to assist. Parts of Galway were also badly hit.

Seapoint Promenade in Salthill has re-opened but excess surface water remains.

The road to Silver Strand to the west of the city is flooded and will remain closed until further notice.

In Limerick, Park Road remains impassable due to flooding. Limerick City Council says the city will be at risk of flooding at high tide until at least tomorrow.

There is excess surface water in many parts of Tipperary - on the Two-Mile-Borris to Thurles Roadd (the N75), on the Templemore/Thurles Road (N62) and on the M7 Dublin/ Limerick Road from J27 Birdhill to J22 Roscrea.

Cork City and County Councils have warned that a flood alert remains in place until this evening because of high tides and heavy rainfall. Council crews remain on high alert.

It is possible that flooding may occur this evening in the low lying areas of Cork city centre including South Terrace, Trinity Bridge, Rutland Street, Cotter Street, Union Quay, Morrisons Quay and Proby’s Quay.

Other areas at potential risk are South Mall, Oliver Plunkett Street, Marlborough Street, Cook Street, and the low lying areas of Cork city centre.

High tide passed without incident this morning. There were no reports of flood related difficulties in Cork city and county overnight.

A spokesperson for Electric Ireland said about 200 customers, mostly in the southwest and Co Kerry, were still without power by 9am today, and that crews were working to restore their supply.

Continuing high winds overnight had precluded earlier action in some of these cases, the spokesperson said, adding it was hoped the problems would be solved today. A lot of the instances were small pockets of outages in several areas around the country. Limerick had been badly hit but of those involved have had their power restored.

Peter Smyth

Peter Smyth is a digital production journalist at The Irish Times