A Strabane mother and daughter who have seen their house flood three times in the last week have pleaded for help from local authorities.
Nikita Stewart and her mum Lorna have had to brush rain water out of their house repeatedly in the last week, with Lorna facing the issue for the 24 years she has lived in the house.
The Ballycolman estate in Strabane where Nikita and her mum live has been plagued by flooding issues for years.
“My mum has lived there for 24 years and it’s been flooding since then,” Nikita told MyTyrone.
“The people who lived there before her had the same issue as well.
“It has flooded properly about eight times since I’ve been born and it’s just not being dealt with, it’s absolutely ridiculous.
“Our house and our neighbour’s house just flood constantly.
“We were asleep and the house flooded and it was all over my mum’s handbag and electricals and things like that."
Nikita said her mum has had to replace the floorboards in the home twice in the last three months.
“It happens all the time, we had sandbags up and it’s still so bad. The house flooded two nights in a row last week, so that was three times in one week", she said.
“There was a big flood in August and it was a week after my mum put new floorboards down, and she had to take them up again and put new ones down.
“She has had to do that again this week with the flooding that happened.
“When it starts raining you can’t even leave the house because there is that much water in the street.
“We have to brush the water out of the house but obviously stuff is already destroyed at that point.”
The Department for Infrastructure said last month it would commit £500,000 to progress a flooding alleviation scheme in the Ballycolman area.
A Department for Infrastructure (DfI) spokesman said: “The Minister understands the stress caused by flooding incidents and committed during her visit to Ballycolman Estate to seek to find ways to alleviate the effects of the flooding and to introducing measures that will help prevent flooding such as that which occurs in the Ballycolman Estate.
"Now that consulting engineers have carried out the detailed study of the causes of flooding on the estate, officials are consulting with stakeholders with a view to agreeing the detail for a short-term intervention which could be in place early next year.”
