Galway City Council staff tried to contact the owners of the 17 cars parked in Toft Park carpark in Salthill ahead of the expected tide surge during Storm Fergus – but only managed to track down ten of them in time.

A total of seven cars were flooded in the carpark on Sunday, all of them belonging to tourists who could not be located, Interim Council Chief Executive Patricia Philbin told a local authority meeting this week.

Councillor Niall McNelis (Lab) said the Council had to figure out a way how to tow cars from it when flooding was predicted as warnings clearly were not working.

Cllr Donal Lyons said he couldn’t understand why people continued to park in Toft Park and on the Prom despite all the warnings.

Senior engineer in Galway City Council said they had made the decision to close off the car park following warnings from Met Éireann.

(Image from Galway Atlantaquaria: A still from a video of the Atlataquaria and Toft carparks during Storm Fergus on Sunday).
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