Flood-hit residents say meeting was 'tick-box exercise'

People had to be rescued from their cars and homes after 63% of August's average rainfall fell within nine hours in the north west in 2017

A woman whose home was badly damaged during flooding in 2017 has described a public meeting hosted by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) as a "tick-box exercise".

Representatives from the DfI met residents in Londonderry on Friday to update them on long-awaited flood defence schemes.

Some residents said they left the meeting frustrated and that it offered little reassurance or concrete timelines for when work would begin.

The DfI said it welcomed the opportunity to engage with residents on flood alleviation proposals and feasibility studies have identified "viable options".

What happened in 2017?

Roads and bridges crumbled, cars were washed away and homes and businesses were destroyed during the flooding in Northern Ireland more than eight years ago.

More than 100 people had to be rescued from their cars and homes after 63% of August's average rainfall fell within nine hours.

The north west was worst affected, particularly Derry and Drumahoe, as well as parts of County Tyrone.

The power of the flood water left several cars stacked on top of each other in Drumahoe, County Londonderry

The meeting in the Foyle Arena was attended by people caught up in the flooding in 2017.

Yvette Birney, whose home in the Waterside was severely damaged by the rain water, told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today that little progress had been made.

"All we heard yet again was platitudes and old rhetoric that we had heard in 2017," she said.

"What we were told really was that cost outweighed benefit and that's why nothing was done initially.

"Personally, I think this was another tick-box exercise for our government and for local council."

The meeting took place the Foyle Arena leisure centre in the Waterside

Steve Comber's home in Newtownstewart was destroyed when the River Strule burst its banks during the same floods.

He now chairs the Three Rivers flood resilience group and said he attended the meeting in the hope that lessons from the past had been learned.

"You spend all your life raising a family, putting everything into a house and you can see it all being taken away from you," he said.

"My house is probably worthless now because who is going to buy it?"

He said he feels "left behind" and lives in constant fear of weather warnings and believes families like his have been left isolated and alone.