Pedestrians walking in the torrential rain in Derry’s Foyle Street at the weekend
Clean-up efforts are continuing in Derry and Strabane after weekend torrential rain.
Six people were rescued by emergency services on Saturday evening as torrential rain fell across the area.
Many homes and businesses have been badly damaged by flood water.
NIFRS Group Commander David Doherty said crews had received more than 100 calls and responded to 49 incidents.
“Obviously our priority, initially, because we did get such a large volume of calls was responding to life-risk calls where we had to perform rescues,” he said.
He added: “When we were turning up to incidents we were finding very fast moving water, that was pulling inside peoples’ houses.
“A lot of the places that were flooded were places that have been flooded previously”.
Between 7 pm on Friday and 7 am on Monday, Castlederg, in County Tyrone, recorded 60.6mm of rain and there was 37mm at the Giant’s Causeway.
At Magilligan, in Co Derry, there was 78.4mm of rain between 10 am on Saturday and 10 pm on Sunday.
In August 2017, more than 100 people were rescued after 63% of August’s average rainfall fell within nine hours in the north west.
Derry City and Strabane District Councillor Rachel Ferguson said no substantial infrastructure work has taken place in the north west since the area was badly affected by floods in 2017.
A Department for Infrastructure scheme is going through “a process of design,” she said, “to determine if it is affordable”.
“But nothing has been done at this stage, the design has not been completed,” she said.
SDLP Foyle MLA Mark H Durkan said major infrastructural changes are moving too slowly.
Heavy rain in Derry toppled over bins.
“They will require a full environmental impact assessment, that is not something that is done overnight.
“You are looking potentially at a year or two before any work starts on the ground. That is far too long”.
Debbie Caufield, the manager at Eglinton Community Hall, said the local community needs more flood protection.
“We have been waiting now quite a couple of years for a flood alleviation scheme. We hope maybe this will be the catalyst in saying this cannot happen again in this area”.
The department said its operational teams were on a heightened state of alert and it responded to almost 300 calls to its flooding incident line.
It estimates that more than 8,000 sandbags were deployed.
Derry City and Strabane District Council said it worked with relevant agencies as part of a multi-agency response.
The Emergency Payment Scheme has been made available by the Department for Communities to assist those worst affected by the floods with a £1,000 payment.
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