Derry is breathing a sigh of relief after a feared tidal surge on the RIver Foyle failed to materialise this morning.
Sandbags in place around BT House.
The city centre had been put on flood alert ahead of this morning’s 11.00am high tide.
Sandbags had been placed in areas around Victoria car park including a multi-million pound pumping station constructed as part of the city’s flood defences and the BT Telecom building.
A further 1,500 sandbags were also “on standby” if they had been needed.
Jim Roddy, City Centre Initiative manager, has defended the flood precautions put in place.
He said there were fears the River Foyle would reach the flood defence levels.
He added: “The River Foyle was very high on Friday and there were fears it would get as high as the defence levels. Thankfully, it did not get as high as expected.”
Mr Roddy a “lot of work” had taken place over the weekend to avoid a recurrence of the August 2004 “disastrous” flooding which caused millions worth of damage.
On that occasion, the city’s drainage scheme was unable to cope with a heavy downpour which resulted in many town centre streets and businesses left in two feet of water for several hours.
In Victoria Road and Foyle Road, which run adjacent to the River Foyle, cars were trapped by the rising water and 14 people were rescued from their vehicles near Prehen.
Following the flooding – described at the time as the worst in living memory – more than £28 million was spent on improving the city’s flood defences, including the provision of pumping stations at Duke Street, Waterside and Victoria Market.
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