June 2012
In February of 2002 over 30 houses and the local public house in the village of Baltray were severely damaged as the result of an exceptionally high tide caused by a variety of weather related incidents occurring at the same time. It was classed as a one in one hundred year flood at that time.
Work is still ongoing to prevent a further flooding disaster occurring in the village, a recent survey carried out at the request of Cllr Tully by Louth County Council officials, has revealed that an old surface water network piping system, that should have been decommissioned when a new storm water system was built in 2004 is the cause of recent flooding occurring in the centre of the village. Work is now underway to resolve this problem the local Councillor has revealed.
Last year Councillor Tully lobbied the County Council for additional funding to carry out the next phase of works to prevent Baltray village from tidal flooding. An in depth survey was required to be carried out before an existing section of a stone sea defense wall could be tampered with. This has proven to be an engineering nightmare and it will require a lot of money to solve this problem. The County Council’s engineers are in the process of submitting these proposals to the government for funding to carry out these works.
In praising the sea defense measures carried out by Louth County Council Cllr Tully stated that, ‘All of the sea defense projects carried out by Louth County Council in Baltray since 2008 have been to the highest standards achievable’. These include the raising of the sea defense walls along the Promenade and at the Meadows, the construction of a bund wall with rock armor at the Haven, the raising and reconstruction of a section of road to the Haven and the construction of a new sea defense wall at Braghan Bridge which also incorporated a new bund wall.
When the last tranche of funding, in the region of 110,000 euro, was welcomed by Cllr Tully in 2010, he stated at the time that ‘While the battle to keep out the flood water is almost over there are further works still necessary to prevent a further catastrophic flood occurring in this picturesque village of Baltray’.
The Baltray residents are now awaiting the allocation of these funds that will finally plug the holes in their sea defenses.
