Part of the Manor Park Retail Complex on the Castleisland side of Tralee was badly hit by flooding in the early hours of this morning.
The park manager and Cordal native, Jackie Brosnan was alerted close to 2am this morning and he in turn warned his business neighbours of the impending danger.
The little murmuring stream which runs through the complex was turned into a raging river by a constant downpour yesterday evening.
Bursting its banks in the early hours of the morning the river began to envelop the car parks in the area and, eventually, the business premises in its path.
“I was alerted early and arrived to find the water rising rapidly. I had alerted all the other businesses in the area but there was little we could do by then,” said Mr. Brosnan.
Four of the businesses at the front of the park seemed to take the brunt of the flooding: Manor Park Café; Right Price Tiles; Suits Select and Flair Salon Supplies.
“Between us all the damage will easily run to thousands of Euros and Kerry County Council have just warned us of further possible damage from flooding at the weekend and on Friday in particular.
“Right now we’re hoping to get back in business as soon as we possibly can and it will be at least tomorrow before we can even hope to do that. Tim Dineen and his cleaning crews are hard at work here as we speak. Some of the businesses were harder hit than others and their losses greater But we’ll just have to get back in gear and get our businesses up and running and prepare for Friday’s rain,” said Jackie.
‘The Manor’ has clocked up a weekly visitor rate of close on 100,000 people and its 300,000 square foot shopping complex is populated by some of the biggest names in retail in Ireland today.
It was developed in the good old days of the building boom in 2002 by the Castlemaine based Boyle construction company.
The park has enjoyed a constant stream of support from a wide hinterland of the county capital.
It has survived the harshness of the economic crash and come through it with flying colours. Now it must do battle with the largely unpredictable forces of nature and deal with its consequences.
