Mopping up after Dublin's deluge will cost millions

Fergus Black in the Independent (Ireland): Millions of euro worth of damage was caused yesterday after Dublin was swamped by a record two weeks' worth of rain in one hour. Residents were evacuated from their homes, patients in one of the capital's busiest hospitals had to be moved to other wards, a roof collapsed on a house in Monkstown, rail services were disrupted and roads were blocked as the city was swamped.

As a huge mopping up operation began, insurers were beginning to receive their first claims for flood damage. A spokesman for the Irish Insurance Federation said it would take a few weeks before an accurate picture would emerge of the latest damage.

Last August, when flooding swamped most of the country, the industry was hit with €96m in claims. Dublin City Council said the flooding across the city was caused by exceptional rainfall "which was the most intense the region has experienced since August 2008".

The city's new Lord Mayor Councillor Emer Costello sympathised with those affected by the overnight flooding and praised the emergency services. "This is the second time within the space of 12 months that Dublin experienced this type of flooding and it is clear that this is as a direct consequence of climate change," she said. "I believe radical measures now need to be taken . . . to make more funding available to the relevant authorities to plan and mitigate for future occurences of this type of weather event."….

A map of the town in the 1920s