Never before had we seen nature turn against us with such violence
The storms in Inishowen were worse than anyone could recall, but they did not wash away the community spirit, writes Kathy Donaghy
THE ‘big storm’ holds a certain place in the memory and imagination of those who witness it. Famous big storms from centuries ago are still talked about in rural communities. For people in Inishowen, the night of August 22 is the storm that will never be forgotten.
Never in a lifetime has anyone seen at first-hand the destructive force of nature unfold so quickly and violently before their eyes.
Nobody wants to experience it again. TV pictures and Facebook images don’t fully capture what this once-in-acentury event was like.
It was late afternoon when the rain started to come down. Very quickly it turned into a deluge. By early evening it turned every ditch, shuck, river and stream into a raging torrent, which, as we now know, wreaked havoc.
At home in Redcastle, my family and I prepared dinner. The lightning and thunder raged outside. The Drung River, which runs alongside our home, was running high. Around 7pm my husband ventured outside and came in saying he’d never seen it like this.
Little visual markers that we use to measure the height of the river, which drains into Lough Foyle, had all been breached. It had never come up this far. This river, which runs through our lives every day, had turned into something unrecognisable. We could only stand and watch with a kind of fascinated horror as it raged past carrying huge trunks of trees with it on its descent to sea level. We had to shout to be heard above it. The smell of fresh silt as the waters tore into the bank was all around us.
With a high spring tide scheduled for 8.30pm, we were concerned that the river would only continue to rise because the flood water would meet the high tide, pushing the water levels even higher.
Our fears were confirmed — by 8.30pm the river had breached its banks and was spilling on to our lawn. We watched as a holly tree, usually on the river bank but now in the middle of the river, was snapped like a matchstick and washed away. Three others were quickly ripped away. We made sure our two boys were safely inside the house and we warned them not to come back out. We started carrying heavy blocks and stones — anything we could find — to make a makeshift flood defence. The water kept coming higher and higher. We realised that until the tide turned there was nothing now that could be done.
Flashes of lightning lit up the night sky, turning a giant torch on the scene. All that was left to do was pray that the bridge at the end of our garden stood up to the volume of water and debris rushing under it. If the bridge became blocked by debris or was knocked, we were in deep trouble.
Just a few miles away, Martin Canavan decided to go out in his tractor to check on the local football grounds. Redcastle FC had spent the summer and a lot of money putting in a new pitch. At Bayview Corner, an accident blackspot, the water was spilling on to the road. Martin and a local farmer knocked the ditch to give the floodwater somewhere to go.
Working for the council’s road departments, Martin would spend the rest of the night until 6am trying to do what he could to help people on the roads and keep the flood waters at bay. At one point he met the Foyle Search and Rescue team heading out with boats as news came in of serious problems in the village of Burnfoot 11 miles away.
At Whitecastle, not far from the shores of Lough Foyle, farmer Campbell Armstrong was keeping an eye on his farmyard and milking parlour across the road from his home. It was his 71st birth- day and he joked with family members about how different it was from last year when he marked his 70th with a family barbecue.
His son, Wayne, who lives next door and runs the farm, was not worried about the herd of cattle as they were in a shed on higher ground, but he was becoming concerned about the milking parlour. The flood water coming down from the hills behind was building up in the road and the farmyard was now feet deep in water.
Trees were being carried through the yard, pitchforks and other farm equipment was being ferried at speed through the torrent and all the milking equipment was submerged. The wall of the bridge beside the Armstrong family home collapsed under the weight of the water as they, with the help of other neighbours, grappled to keep things under control.
Nearby in the village of Quigley’s Point, John McLaug- lin and his staff at the Point Inn B&B, bar and restaurant were preparing to serve dinner to a full house. John was busy front of house and first realised there was a problem when his chef came out to tell him water was coming in. Going to investigate, he opened the back door and was nearly floored by the force of the water entering his premises.
While members of staff evacuated guests to safety, John tried to build a makeshift flood defence. As he struggled to put something in place, the concrete collapsed under him and he was sucked into the river that runs alongside the Point Inn. Waisthigh in flood water he hauled himself out with a strength he didn’t know he had.
With guests in tears, the water gushed through his premises, flooding the ballroom and going through the bar and out the front door, leaving a trail of destruction behind it and ruining all it touched.
Shortly after 9pm, artist Mairead Howie left her house in Iskaheen near Muff to head towards Derry to help a family member with flooding at their home. By the time she reached the old customs post premises at Muff on the Derry-Donegal border, the flood water was three feet deep and no chance of getting through so she turned around to go home.
It was to be a nightmare journey of three-and-a-half hours where she thought she would have to abandon her car. All around people were struggling, their cars caught up in the flooding. Even though she knew the back roads well, it seemed at every turn there was a blockage with water washing away roads or throwing debris in her path.
Trying to guide other drivers, as she knows the area, it was like playing a giant game of snakes and ladders and all the while the thunder and lightning storm continued to rage.
In Urris on the western side of Inishowen, Bridie Kearney had just sat down to her dinner shortly after 8.30pm when she heard a bang and could only watch as her entire kitchen was thrown across the room. A landslide had pushed her car through her house, knocking all before it.
Only months earlier Bernie, a medical receptionist, had opened her home and made tea for firemen who attended gorse fires in the area. A statement issued by Donegal firefighters on the Inishowen peninsula said they “were saddened to learn of what happened to the house of a wonderful lady who stayed up all night making food and made sure every single firefighter was fed who was fighting the gorse and forest fires a few months ago”. They have promised to do all they can to help Bernie now.
At Burnfoot, a small village with a population of about 400, Sinead Coyle was making dinner at around 8pm when the water started coming in through the kitchen at the back of the house. It was time to get out. A neighbour in her Lios na Greine estate tied a scarf around her two children, Lea (14) and Sean (10), and pulled them through the water which was rushing around them at shoulder height now. She watched as her dog swam out the door.
All over Inishowen, the scenes of destruction continued: bridges knocked, local roads blocked with trees as the land literally slid away due to the sheer force of the water. Major arteries through the peninsula like the main Derry Moville Road became impassable with giant craters opening up. Local amenitites, including Buncrana’s boxing club and the Glenevin Waterfall trail at Clonmany, were destroyed. All over this area, there are tales of farmers who lost livestock, businesses wiped out, homes ruined and families heartbroken.
But in the midst of what is a humanitarian disaster zone, there are also tales of incredible bravery and kindness. Martin Canavan did not go home until 6am after he had battled all night to do what he could.
At the Point Inn, John McLaughlin and his 15 staff are working hard to clean up. John says he will not lie down to this and that the Point Inn will re-open.
At the Armstrong family farm, Campbell Armstrong and son Wayne milked their 85-strong herd the next day. His wife, Joyce, had 15 people for breakfast the next morning and she fed them with bacon and sausage sandwiches after they’d got the yard and the milking parlour back in action.
At Burnfoot, Sinead Coyle was lighting fires and with the help of family and friends, trying to put her home back together. Even though her home is now just a shell, she’s thankful to the neighbour who literally pulled her children to safety.
My family and I are grateful that the flood waters began to recede before reaching our house as the tide eventually turned. But it’s a summer night we’ll never forget. We were among the lucky ones.
Here in Inishowen, we are often at the mercy of the weather. We live on a peninsula in the northern-most part of the country and are used to being buffeted by storms off the Atlantic. Heavy snows often leave isolated parts of the area impassable.
Yet in the face of the most unrelenting storm, people’s ability to be kind to one another is unsurpassed; things like neighbours leaving their homes and battling all night to save another’s home, people taking in strangers literally stranded on the side of the road.
We have been shaken by this. Many people have been badly scarred. Others have lost everything. It sounds like a cliche to talk about community spirit.
But it’s true. We are fortunate to live in a place where people not only know their neighbours but will go the extra mile to help them. We wouldn’t want it any other way and I know most of us feel privileged to call this beautiful part of the world “home”.
‘In the face of this storm the kindness was unsurpassed’