A college submerged underwater

Over €26 million damage, 2,000 students displaced and little or no effective warning.

On the night of 20 November, students in UCC were going about their business as usual after a normal college day, but in a matter of hours they were waking up to a situation that was far from routine.

Videos and photos shared on the internet showed a lighter side to the floods with students pictured canoeing and swimming on many of the city’s main thoroughfares in the early morning, but locals haled it miraculous that no one was seriously hurt.

“I was coming home from a party and I was thinking I must be imagining things – there’s something a bit surreal about being waste deep in water outside your front door,” said one student.

The ESB issued its standard warnings prior to increasing the flow of the river Lee from the Inniscara dam earlier the day in question. After a major study carried out following the 1986 flooding, projected flood levels like these were seen as likely to occur every 250 years. There is therefore little surprise that this city was so unprepared for what it was about to face.

Many parts of the city centre were flooded destroying shops and business, with many more locations forced to close as vital services such as the water mains were cut off due to contamination

University College Cork (UCC) announced the cancellation of all lectures for the following week due to damage to buildings on and off campus, causing confusion and even panic among some students.

“We were getting e-mails from some lecturers saying we could come in anyway because certain lecture theatres were fine, and the college were e-mailing us to ignore those e-mails then,” said Helen Daly, a third year Public Health student.

“It’s not the ideal situation coming up to Christmas deadlines having mixed messages on top of the obvious problems from the floods.”

“All of the new problem areas arose in recent developments built on floodplains, and which engineers, planners and environmental impact reports had claimed had necessary adjustments to allow for predicted flood levels, all eventualities - even in basements and underground car parks,” said one local businessman.

A number of college buildings have reopened since, but an estimated 30 per cent of UCC’s structural properties has been affected by the flooding. Lecture theatres, offices, labs and the college sports arena were amongst the casualties.

The recently constructed Glucksman art gallery, which had been recognised with architectural awards, was amongst the worst hit on the campus. In response to criticisms of its decision to build on sites which were known to have been flooded regularly in the past, UCC stated:

“The buildings were designed and constructed above projected flood levels. The floods experienced last Thursday were extraordinary and affected all recently constructed building in the west of the city including County Hall, Kingsley Hotel, etc., and other areas never previously flooded.”

A large number of students were forced to abandon their accommodation due to flood damage with many being forced to leave much of their belongings behind. Many of the students have since been allowed to move back in but for ground floor residents the wait will have to continue until after Christmas.