I'm in Fife Scotland and I've been watching the flooding on the news. Yesterday we had the heaviest, longest downpour I've ever seen in my life. We've just built a big new shed at the bottom of the garden and we were trapped in it till the rain stopped. When we came out there was a moat all the way round the shed and around my raised veggie beds. It was about 3" deep and we had to wade out. My lawn wa equally as deep. By tea-time it had all gone down. I feel so sorry for the folk with the REAL floods if that was just a wee taster we got.
That sounds like quite a lot of rain Shazz Shazz! Have you lost and plants or crops? I noticed a house in Yorkshire flooded on the breakfast news today.
Hi Sarah, I'm not sure if I lost anything to the rain other than my nemesias which are a bit flattened and my outside sweetcorn looks pretty poorly. I am having a serious pest problem this year though. My cherry tree is saturated in blackfly, my redcurrants are covered in greenfly, my blackcurrants are non existant. My fuschias are being chewed something terrible (probably capsid big)and the dog pee patches in my lawn are all wet and slimy. Aw well, looking on the bright side, at least it's not all under water. I have plenty of pears, apples & plums, my spuds are doing great, and my strawbs have doubled in size the last few days.
We are in N E Derbyshire, just by J28 on the M1 - my family live in Sheffield, but fortunately not in the flooded areas - because it is built on 7 hills (like Rome!) and there are several rivers running through it, all ending up in the Don, they often have problems, but not on the present scale. A lot of the houses were built on flood plains, but a guy called Dr Ian Rotherham who is an environmentalist at the Uni wrote a paper ten years ago advising the Council that this would happen - but where money is concerned Councils seem to take plenty of no notice. The flood in the park where the teenager drowned was caused in part by the overflowing of the dame which serves the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet (an historic little mesters steel works). It happened before in 1959.
Last Monday I tried to get my daughter through to Sheffield for her A level exam revision class (thank goodness it was not the actual exam) but after an hour and a half we had to turn back as every road we tried was flooded.
We have a field at the side of our house, and that has been flooded quite badly - the water reached upto a foot away from our garden, much to our relief, so we were glad when the rain stopped and the water drained away. We planted a mini wild flower meadow which flooded, but that seems to have recovered quite well. All we need is a bit of sun and hopefull we will get more flowers before we have to cut it down.
I read about the over-flowing of the dam and how crucial it is in these flood situations that dams don't burst. It is interesting what you say about Dr Ian Rotherham predicting the problems that would happen.
We have to hope that, due to all this flooding, we manage to become experts in controlling it, because as you found with your daughter, everything can grind to a halt. It's not just the flooding itself, but generally being able to carry on your day to day business that will affect individuals and companies alike.
I'm not at Hampton Court and the rain is coming down for the third or fourth time today. No flooding as such, but plenty of mud!
Sarah - just thought you would like to know that the dam that was in the news was a different dam - in that case, there was a serious risk that the wall would give way! With the Abbeydale dam, it just overflowed across the main road and into the River Sheaf, which caused Millhouses Park to flood (my parents live in that area, and I was brought up there, that is why I am so familiar with it). A young couple I know who live in what would have been the path of the water from Ulley Reservoir path said that they were absolutely terrified. Colleagues of my husband who are attending a conference at Meadowhall tomorrow have told him that they have been advised that their hotel is still flooded on the ground level but that the bedrooms are fine - we have not yet worked out how they will get to the bedrooms if down stairs is flooded! Fortunately we live near enough that Colin can travel on the same day. We used to have a house where the water table was so high that when it rained heavily the cellar filled with water, right up to the trap door. I hate to think how the present owners of that house will have got on this time. Being a bit philosophical, after these few days, it is easy to see how a flood of the magnitude of the Noah flood could have happened.
Yes, I'm aware it was a different dam and that everything was being done to prevent the wall from giving way. I think my point is, one disaster like that, is one disaster too many, because as you say, it's bad enough with the problems caused by the Abbeydale dam. I do find it ironic that while we are constantly made aware of the threat of terrorism on the news, the biggest disaster to afflict this and other countries is likely to come from the weather. Where's Noah?
Was listening to the local radio today because the Daily Mail has given fresh coverage to the plight of the flood victims - they read out a text sent in by a little boy of about 10-12, who said how frightened he had been, how he had lost everything (meaning his i-pod, t.v. games console etc, but said that he was so frightened when he had to go into the water that he could not move, but his dog, who was swimming because the water was so deep, pulled him to safety. Colin was at a conference in the Meadowhall Centre yesterday and said that all that was on offer was sandwiches. His colleague stayed at the local Travel Inn, but they were not able to offer food, just a bed. Tne Sheffield Ice Centre is still not running properly and neither are the Sport England prmises across the road. The Hallam FM Arena is on slightly higher ground, so that escaped, but they lost the ice when the electricity went off and the chillers went down. Listening to the radio, there are still major problems and many roads closed at that end of the city, and rail links are still slow. Certainly, there are no trains going through our local station at Alfreton. As we are not very well provided with buses if we did not have cars we would have problems. You have to feel for those poor people who have lost everything and whose homes have been condemned. As one victim said - all those years of hard work and saving, all those memories, gone in moments. We should be very glad that we do not have earthquakes etc in this country, but I suppose there is always a first time, and we must count our blessings.
Oddly enough the Midlands, where my parent lives, have had the odd earthquake and tornedo. Thanks for the update. Ever considered a job as a reporter? The news showed that householders in Yorkshire may be looking at 6 months before they're back to normal, with an average cost of £30,000 per house in damages and insurance.
A couple I know, who had been spending the Summer in Spain, received a phone call to say that their house was flooded to 5' and more in places and could they please come home. The cars that were left outside when they went away have been towed away and written off, and the down stairs has had to be gutted, with the plaster taken back to the brick and stone work (the house was a couple of hundred years old). They have had to take a mimimum six months lease rental on a furnished property whilst they oversee the restoration, but many precious things have had to be consigned to the bonfire. We were talking abut people not having insurance on their properties and possessions, but no amount of insurance can restore mememtoes and things of sentimental value, and some people have been told that they will simply never be able to live in their homes again. It must be absolutely soul destroying. PS I did think being a reporter when I was young and foolish, but did not pursue it and I think I am a bit long in the tooth to start now, though I would love to have a go!
You're right. No amount of money can restore cherished items. I think it's hard to get to grips with the scale of the problem unless you're one of the people sleeping overnight in a sport's hall wondering when you're ever going to make it back home, if, as you say, they make it back at all.
I'm really interested to see how the summer pans out with the weather - across the country, April was so unusually warm, followed by continuous rain. Can we still expect a hot summer and/or an Indian summer?
Think I'll start a year-on-year log to monitor just how things change in the next decade or so...
Sarah- I think that could be quite interesting and revealing, but remember to save it and print it off - we were talking today and someone who is a computer freak said that in the not too distant future nothing would be written pen on paper, everything would be on line or stored in computers. Some one else remarked that historians are getting quite hot under the collar about this, as information on almost everything has historically been written down and kept inthe form of letters, diaries, hand drafted charts etc etc and valuable information is being lost because it is not freely available to the members of the public who might be interested in doing research, keeping their own comparative records etc.
Sorry for your friends Susan, must have been horrible to come back to their house and see the distruction. Most of people's posetions would have been stored downstairs so pictures albums, books etc' would have gone caput which would be worse than the house - if you've got insurance.
A year-on-year would be interesting Sarah, there's a lot of chances to come in the future I'd imagin.
It's true, I think most things would be on computers, and letters, diaries etc' would be scaned - infact some have already been scanned if I remember right from somewhere - onto computer systems, if only to have a "back up". It might not be all good but it makes sense as most of us use computers but I wouldn't read a book from a computer screen (maybe through a Nintento DS or a laptop but then I wouldn't be able to move around or lie down).
Point taken about the records. Fortunately I am a bit of a stationery enthusiast, in spite of working in an online environment, and tend to keep all sorts of data on plain, old-fashioned paper. It's interesting what you say though about historians. On a slightly different tack, I've heard that emails don't hold up in court (is is the same for mobile phone messages?), which gives the written word on paper more weight.
Weather forecast for the weekend our way I'm told is a mix of overcast and sunny.
I didn't know that about emails but it does make sense - a good hacker can get to your email account I'd imagine but it's hard to fake someones hand writing or signature.
This is all sounding quite serious stuff...weather wise, Sarah, I have jsut been out and scrubbed all the dirt that has come with the rainfall from the garden table, which will now have to be re-oiled I suppose, and then no doubt I will have to start again after the next lot of rain! Have told husband that we need to get the table cover on if this weather is going to keep up.
On the flooding topic, I work about 150 yards away from where they helicopters were airlifting people to safety. One of the roads I go down to get home was closed (as this is where the man was swept away), so it took me about an hour and a quarter to get 1/2 a mile. My 20 min journey home took 2 hours!. It was very scary I tell you. We lost power at work for 2 days, (but still had to go in, bummer!). Garden wise. My veggies are rotting in the ground coz its just so waterlogged. My poor wee sunflowers are only about 4 inches tall and are very miserable. Today is the only the second day we havent had rain in Sheffeild since the flooding, and the gardens are NOT happy!!! On the record keeping topic, its nice and siple to keep stuff on disc and computer, but what happens when you get flooded out and loose all the discs and your harddrive??? I have a friend who runs a computer store in Sheffield and thats exactly what happened to him. Not good.
Hi Kiwigirl, It's wierd how everywhere else it's wet but everythings going pretty much as usual when only down the road it's havoc. flooding will damage to paperwork as well as computers so there's no advantage either way. You might be able to retrive information both from very wet documents and "ruined" hard drives.
I'm thinking there might be a market for waterproof notepads and ink, in the event of more flooding and the possibility of losing hard drives etc - waterproof computer equipment? As you say Kiwigirl, your computer friend has lost his data. Disastrous for business.
Here in Kent it's such a different story - no rain for a while, it's warm and muggy and the garden needs plenty of water. Let's hope Sheffield dries out soon!
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