Lifeboats on the streets Dublin suffered from some severe flooding on Friday, 1 March and the RNLI stepped in to help to evacuate people from their homes as the water steadily rose. A combination of heavy rain, high winds, the highest tide of the year and the Grand Canal bursting its banks led to widespread danger.

With a D class and Y boat hitched up to trailers the volunteers headed across the city through the rush hour traffic under police escort. They arrived in Irishtown, a suburb of Dublin's inner city, to the relief of the relatives of the people trapped in their homes. The water depth was about 1,5m high but deeper on lower street levels.

The crew broke up into two teams and systematically searched the flooded streets for people stranded in their homes.

In some cases they could position the inflatables right up to front doors. Elderly and young alike were lifted into the boats and ferried to safety. Two of the elderly casualties were hypothermic and were taken by waiting ambulance to hospital. The team had just finished there at about 7pm when the Coastguard asked them to go to another area on the north side of the city where more people were reported trapped in their homes.

Again under police escort, the two lifeboats, an ex D class used by the Coastguard and a civil defence boat made up a convoy. Once again they put the boats in the water and waded through the streets (by this time it was dark) knocking on doors. Some people were shouting from upstairs windows to attract attention. They lifted 11 people to safety, mostly elderly people who had been without electricity and warm food since the morning. Once the team was sure they had done all they could they withdrew and headed back to the more familiar coast..