Survivors of catastrophic floods that swamped Eglinton, Ivy Mead and Drumahoe have spoken of a lingering trauma eight years on. - video Dailymotion

Derry Journal

Survivors of catastrophic floods that swamped Eglinton, Ivy Mead and Drumahoe have spoken of a lingering trauma eight years on.

Transcript

00:00I'm a resident of Eglinton Village. My home flooded in 2017 and I was out of my house for about

00:07four months and then we had a near miss again in 2022. I went away to

00:15Ennis Gilland for the day and there was no weather warning, there was no advance warning

00:19and I couldn't get back in time but thankfully my mum was able to come and put the sandbags out.

00:25This project then came along and I was thinking I don't have time for this. I don't want to open

00:33that box of trauma again and the first day was at the Playhouse and at one stage we were sitting on

00:38the floor making things with wool and paper and wee bits and bobs. I thought what am I doing here?

00:45I don't have the capacity to do this and I don't want to open all those horrible memories again

00:51but the artist was really good. Sally was fantastic and scary that she said she didn't know what the

00:56end thing was going to be. I thought we were going to like build something with plaster scene and

01:00display it in the village or something like that. I didn't realize it was going to be this

01:04audio thing but the project was actually really therapeutic. There's only two good things came

01:10out of the flooding. The friendships that I've made with other people in the community that I didn't

01:14know before and this project. As part of the project I got to go to Ballina and Cross Malina

01:21to see a village areas of similar size that had similar problems with flooding and it was really

01:26great to get out of my community see another community that was maybe a wee bit more advanced

01:30and it gave us hope because they had a flood alleviation scheme designed. They were just waiting

01:34for it to be implemented and it was great to see that the flood alleviation schemes were designed around

01:39people and communities. Not about just restricting the river but the water was being overflowed to a

01:45different area. There was lakes, walkways, it was created space for nature as well as space for the

01:50river. So I would encourage anybody to participate in these type of projects. It's a hard sale art and

02:01something very traumatic but I would say it was it was really really good. I just want to put out a few

02:08asks to see if council have the appetite to help us in some way and also just a few thanks.

02:16We would ask that there would be greater alignment between some of the council initiatives and

02:21adoptions like the rights of nature, climate action strategies, emergency responses and the reviews of

02:29the of the flood that have been mentioned with planning decisions because a lot of those initiatives

02:34are great but they're undercut then by by planning decisions and that just that just is defeating the

02:41purpose of things like the blueprint project when you can build individual resilience and community

02:46resilience but the actual flood resilience is being limited by by planning decisions.

02:53We'd also like to encourage the EFI rivers off the back of the event on Friday to come down to

02:58Englenton and possibly the Ivy Mead. I know they're not here today and if there's any hope for anything

03:02in Newton Stewart to come and engage directly with the communities. Two o'clock on Friday

03:08in Derry wasn't a great time for people who are working to engage in that and it felt like a bit

03:12of a tick box. I don't know somebody says that already. At the bottom of my garden for 265 meters there's

03:19two walls being proposed. I don't know what they couldn't tell me what height that wall is and they

03:24couldn't tell me that if the water gets over the wall in a flood event how does it get back out again

03:28and I would worry that I'm going to be sitting in a lake for longer. So that detail wasn't there on

03:33Friday and maybe it hasn't got to that stage yet but I think there's questions about how it and how

03:39what this is going to look like and how it's going to function um that need in the you know in the

03:45community at a good time when when people can can do that maybe in an evening. I know that might

03:49suit the DFI people but it would suit the majority of the community um and they look at other projects

03:56like the one we've seen down in Ballina has great space for the river space for the environment it's

04:02not these big concrete walls like I go over the bridge at Stravan and you look upstream and it's

04:07just two big concrete walls Eglinton doesn't need that when we went to Blue um Newton Stewart their

04:13flood banks are used for recreation they're used for walks people have a connection with the river you go

04:17to Eglinton you wouldn't even see the two rivers that are there and now we're going to put up these

04:21walls to hide them even further at least I can go down to the river now and see things that are

04:25happening on it I wouldn't be able to see the river trees would have to get chopped down to build these

04:29walls um and I'm only talking personally about the bed at my back there's other parts of the

04:33valleys that have flood alleviation measures um that I haven't directly got involved with so um I think

04:39it would be good just for the whole community to have that time directly with the DFI to see exactly what

04:44these proposals proposals mean I was there at the two floods in Eglinton and it's just it's just

04:52unthinkable I have never been flooded myself you know but to see what the damage it does to the

04:59people you know and the damage that it has done thereafter you know that you get the phone calls

05:05I get the phone calls once the heavy rains coming you know you have pensioners in Eglinton that are worried

05:11every day that there's heavy rain there's yourselves are worried every time there's every rain and it's

05:17that trauma that is still there to this day and will always be there you know until so the blueprint

05:23project helped up on that but I think you are right we have a lot to do you know going forward

05:30and just to begin with I think I speak for everyone when I say we are genuinely so sorry to know of

05:35the devastating and stressful experiences you have faced as a result of flooding many of us myself

05:41included be on the ground during these events we know how truly traumatic the experience is for you

05:46all as well as how stressful the aftermath is as a rural counsellor for the Fahan ward I am acutely

05:53aware of the mental emotional physical and financial stress that flooding in particular has brought to

06:00many and I would go as far as to say in fact too many of you our constituents I am so thankful that

06:07you got to be part of this project and the experience you have had which clearly has provided emotional

06:13and social support systems as well as bringing forth very very important resilience groups thank you for

06:19providing your very strong presentation each of you and for providing a vital message about the need for

06:25alleviation methods to be found district-wide and urgently I'm lucky enough that my house never flooded

06:32I can sympathize with these families because like myself and many other elected members in this room

06:39and members who aren't here today have experienced it with these families especially connected around

06:47the ivy mead area where we have watched families who have been left living in fear their mental health

06:56and well-being of these families has been seriously challenged and along the way some have managed to

07:03sell our houses some have wanted to stay put because they love the area that they live in but it's how much

07:10more they can put up of this because we have eight years now on from the 2017 flood and we're still

07:17looking for answers along with these families about what process is going to be taken to actually try

07:25and sort out these issues hopefully we are a few steps closer I have to say that I was rather disappointed

07:33too with the um the setup last Friday um sorry last Thursday where I thought we would have had been

07:41allowed for families to actually speak to um DFA and maybe get more uh solid answers the um the questions

07:52that still uh spun about in their heads on a daily basis especially when that heavy rain comes and the worry

07:59sets and it will my house flood again and uh I have been involved in the past in helping communities out when

08:06flooding had uh occurred and I've seen the devastation and and the aftermath where you know families have to

08:14pick up the pieces but I couldn't imagine what it is to go through that and you don't need you know the answer

08:24isn't empathy or sympathy or even tears you know you mentioned that that the part that the water played

08:32there was no politics and that what the water does but politics is playing every part in the lack of response

08:41the lack of of uh solution and that's the reality you know we shouldn't need uh a disaster like this the

08:52the breakdown uh barriers within our community

Survivors of catastrophic floods that swamped Eglinton, Ivy Mead and Drumahoe have spoken of a lingering trauma eight years on.

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