Couple rescued in dinghy after being trapped by floodwater

A married couple who were rescued from their flooded home by firefighters during Storm Chandra have said the water level was up to their thighs when they were evacuated from their house in a dinghy.

David Letherman said he and his husband Jim Cunningham had been calling the authorities for help all day on Tuesday as they watched the water level rise in their home in the Riverside area of Antrim.

"The fridge was floating, the freezer was floating in the kitchen," Letherman said, adding that the downstairs of their property was now "totally wrecked".

The storm caused widespread damage and disruption, with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) receiving 570 reports of flooding.

"I'm still a bit shell-shocked really," Letherman told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"I haven't slept, thinking about what the house is like, what we're going to do for the next God knows how many weeks to get the house sorted," he added.

"It's the most helpless situation I've ever been in. What do you do?"

He said he began calling the DfI and its rivers service from about 09:00 GMT on Tuesday, asking for help to pump the water from the road outside.

When no assistance arrived he called his husband, who works as a Marie Curie nurse, asking him to come home.

"David rang, obviously completely distressed," Cunningham told the programme.

"So I got home, just when the water was starting to fill up and I had to wade through that water.

"At that stage it was up to probably my ankles... then as the day continued it just came up to your knees and further up to thigh level."

Letherman filmed the situation inside his home and shared it on social media - a video which was picked up by his local newspaper, the Antrim Guardian.

By evening, the couple could not leave the house without help because the water outside was so deep.

An off-duty firefighter, who had been told of their plight, went to their house to help them to safety.

They praised firefighters for rescuing them, describing them as "absolutely amazing".

However, they questioned the speed of the DfI's response, several hours after they made distress calls about the rapidly rising river.

"There was absolutely nothing done until four o'clock yesterday evening, whenever it was too late," Cunningham said.

The couple have been living in their Riverside home for just seven months, having bought the property in June 2025.

"It was the beauty of buying a house by the river, and now the river is in our house," Letherman said.

Kathleen Kelly, who lives in Meadowside in Antrim said the noise of the river coming into her house was "louder than a train".

"It scared the wits out of me," she said.

"Water was coming at the house from three directions...it just kept creeping and creeping, you just watch it helplessly."

Kelly said there was "frustration and anger" in the community as the area was prone to flooding.

"One of the biggest things is the attention that needs to be given, some people say the river needs to be dredged lower, certainly the drains on the street and even the gutter were all like fountains yesterday."

Michael O'Kane, a senior engineer from DfI, sympathised with the couple but said the "sheer volume of rain" was difficult for agencies to cope with.

"In some areas we had roughly between 150% to 190% rainfall in a very short period of time that would normally have occured over the month," he explained.

"River levels were rising dramatically. We had 943 incidents recorded, 343 of them were obstructions and 570 of them were flooding incidents across Northern Ireland."

The engineer added that Antrim was "hit extremely hard" but DfI did have "teams deployed for sandbags with gully emptiers, high capacity lorries, pumps".

"We were trying to get water removed from the carriageway on Riverside but it was challenging because the in-flood Six Mile Water was breaching the parapet walls at this location," O'Kane said.

Stormont's infrastructure minister said what had happened was "devastating" for those people affected during a visit to Riverside on Wednesday.

"Jim and David's experience is absolutely horrendous, very frightening, and something that goes beyond even the last 24 hours and will have a long-term impact," said Liz Kimmins.

"We need to ensure that we can give people confidence that they feel safe, they feel secure, but most importantly they feel supported."

Kimmins said staff resources were stretched "from different angles" on Tuesday, but that they were taking "this very seriously" to ensure people are protected "going forward".

"Certainly what I want the message to be is that we are doing everything that we can to try and deal with this," she added.

In County Armagh, a section of the Belfast to Dublin railway line has been flooded outside Portadown causing disruption to the Enterprise and other rail services.

As a result, Enterprise passengers are being transferred between Belfast and Newry by bus, and Translink said there is a decreased rail service between Newry and Dublin.

There are also bus substitutions for those using Portadown to Newry services.

In County Down, Katesbridge recorded its wettest ever day on Tuesday with 100.8mm of rain falling in 24 hours.

Previously the most the hamlet had seen in a single day was 70.7mm in August 1986.

Another yellow rain warning has been issued for Friday by the Met Office.

The alert is in place from midnight on Thursday until 10:00 on Friday.

Rainfall of 10-25mm is expected widely across Northern Ireland in this period but locally totals of 40-60 mm could fall on higher ground, especially around the Mourne Mountains.

Winds will also strengthen as the weather system moves in across the island of Ireland on Thursday night, but will not be as extreme as the stormy conditions associated with Chandra.

Peak gusts of 81mph were measured at both Orlock Head on the County Down coast and Malin Head on the northern Donegal coast.

In the Republic of Ireland, Enniscorthy town in County Wexford was badly hit by flooding after the River Slaney burst its banks.

Parts of the town remained impassable on Wednesday morning.

Elayne Grant was rescued by boat from a flooded property near Enniscorthy Quay along with her daughter Casey and three-week-old grandson.

She told Irish broadcaster RTÉ they were on the first floor of the building as water entered the ground floor level, where the electrics were located.

Grant said it was "petrifying" for the child's parents as the water levels "kept rising and rising and rising", but that Slaney Search and Rescue sent a boat and crew.

She said her grandson slept through the experience.

"The two guys with Slaney Rescue the current was going against them, it was scary," she added.

Floodwaters are not expected to recede significantly for several hours, potentially hampering the town's clean-up operation.

The Office of Public Works said it remained committed to introducing a flood relief scheme for Enniscorthy.

Elsewhere, in Dundalk, County Louth, firefighters rescued two crew members of an ambulance which was stuck in floodwater under the Castletown Road railway bridge.

Dublin Fire Brigade also said it responded to a number of flooding and water rescue incidents - with motorists taken to safety after they became trapped in floods.

Chandra was named by the Met Office.

It is the third major storm to hit the UK in January after Goretti and Ingrid, which caused significant damage and disruption.

The list of storm names is announced on 1 September each year and runs in alphabetical order.

The season started with Amy in October, followed by Bram in early December 2025.

To report faults or emergencies you should contact:

• Flooding Incident Line: 0300 2000 100

• NI Water: 03457 44 00 88 or visit niwater.com

• NIE Networks: 03457 643 643 or visit nienetworks.co.uk

• Northern Ireland Housing Executive: 03448 920 901

• Openreach: 08000 232 023

• Gas networks: 0800 002 001