Flood resident still waiting to get home

Noel McMonagle standing beside the burst water main which caused the flood damage

A man whose house was flooded by a burst water main has said he still does not know when he will be able to return home.

Noel McMonagle’s home was one of six houses flooded at Ballyarnett Road in Londonderry on 11 April.

He is now living in a rented house in County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland after difficulties securing a short term let closer to home.

Hopes that he’ll be back in his own home by early July now depend on “some kind of miracle,” he said.

Six homes in Derry’s Belmont estate were each extensively damaged when the water main burst.

At the time, residents were critical of NI Water’s response to the incident saying the company was too slow to respond.

NI Water said a review into the incident has now been completed.

“One area identified for improvement is how we communicated our actions with our customers,” the company said.

Mr McMonagle's home was one of six badly damaged

Mr McMonagle told BBC Radio Foyle’s North West Today programme that on the day the main burst residents had been “left to their own devices for three and a half hours”.

“They (NI Water) have apologised for that, and said measures in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he said.

In the weeks since, he and his wife have been passed “from pillar to post”.

“It has been a wee bit chaotic,” he said.

“We have been trying to make the best of a bad situation, trying to speed things up and get the work commenced,” he added.

It’s been a slow process, Mr McMonagle added.

They’ve been going to their home in Derry daily, opening windows and doors in the hope that will help.

Work to dry the house has yet to commence.

“That has surprised me the most. I thought that would have been the priority once they cleared the surface water, any water that they needed to pump out,” he said.

He added: “It took us over a week, closer to two, before we had an insurance person come and see us – I thought unacceptable, to me that is time lost”.

Ni Water says it recognises a need to improve its communications with affected customers

Mr McMonagle’s neighbours, he added, “are all in the same boat”.

“Everybody is the same, struggling to get sorted out. The slow progress with the work is getting to everyone.

“This is a straight forward case, NI Water have accepted responsibility, the insurance companies will get any redress for work carried out”.

With a daughter getting married this summer, Mr McMonagle had hoped the family would be home by early July.

“We want to be back in our own home. At this stage it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen unless there’s some kind of miracle,” he said.

NI Water said their response to the burst main prioritised resolving the issue as quickly as possible.

“Overall, the review found we responded to customer calls as quickly as possible, however there is room to improve how we communicate our actions so our customers can be reassured that we are responding with urgency to emergency situations,” the company said.