A FISH was found swimming on the street in Annacotty as residents and businesses struggled to deal with flooding of biblical proportions at the weekend.
The waters of the Mulcair River rose to the highest level ever recorded as the floods turned roads, walkways and bridges into rivers, closed at least one business and threatened others and put homes at risk.
Members of the Annacotty Tidy Towns Committee recorded pictures of a fish swimming on the street after it came up through a culvert on the rising waters.
It was captured and returned to the flooded river.
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Joe Pond joined his neighbours on Mulcair Drive in laying out nearly 2,000 sandbags on Sunday night.
“Everyone joined in the effort. Council staff were delivering sandbags up to midnight and we have to thank them for that. We managed to keep the water out of the houses but it did get into sheds and boiler houses,” he said.
The basement area of the Mill Bar was flooded and the business has had to close temporarily.
Meanwhile, business people and residents are bracing themselves for a release of water through Parteen Weir which has been signalled by the ESB at Ardnacrusha.
Controllers said that they will have to release the water at between 120 and 200 cubic meters per second in the coming days.
“The ESB is continuing to monitor the situation. The amount of water being discharged is such that flooding is not expected to occur as a direct result,” an ESB spokesperson told the Limerick Post on Tuesday.
Cllr Pond said that he is concerned about future flooding threats to Mulcair Drive and to the Mountshannon Road which is one of the areas highlighted as being of massive concern in plans for the controversial Northern Distributor Road.
“Funding was announced for flood defences for Limerick and I will certainly be looking for some of that for Annacotty,” said Cllr Pond.
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