This article is from page 12 of the 2014-01-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
MORE than € 100,000 worth of damage has been inflicted on Lahinch Seaworld which will remain closed to the public until further notice. The facility was hit with a severe flood on Friday morning as flood waters from Lahinch Golf Club and the Liscannor Road Car Park, overflowed into its control room – severely damaging both the structure of the building and the swimming pools facilities.
Manager of Lahinch Seaworld, Joe Garrihy, said that his team are work ing hard to get the facility up and running as soon as possible.
“We have extensive damage to our plant room, to the boiler house, to the cinema and the multi purpose hall. The big systems in the plant room and the boiler house, like the heating system for the pool, had been submerged in about three foot of water. So that is a big problem,” said Mr Garrihy.
“The flood actually came from the Golf Club side. There was so much flooding in that area that it eventually flooded down to ourselves. So we had it coming at us from both directions.
The damage comes at the worst possible time for Seaworld, as this is their busiest time to secure new members for the gym and pool.
“We need to reopen again as soon as possible. This is the busiest part of the year for people in the fitness sector, so it is a big blow. We are going to be closed until next Monday [January 13] at least,” continued Joe.
“Once the heating is off it can take as much as much as a week to get the water to heat up again and to get the water filtered properly. We are targeting that week at the moment but we can’t say for sure.
“We need to be back up and running soon. We service around 30 school in the North Clare area and they need somewhere to swim. Membership is our core business, and if they don’t have somewhere to go they will either go somewhere else or give up on out new years resolution.
“We are all really determined to get this back on track. We have had a great response from the public – local people and people from all over the country. Everyone is really determined to get this back on track and I’d like to thank everyone from all their support.”