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Relapse wrote:
Did these people realize they were in a flood area when they built or moved in, or is that something the agents kept quiet about?
What is now in motion to help the victims?

The problem is that the kind of flood that once used to happen about every 100 years is now happening about every 10 years, for some reason.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Did these people realize they were in a flood area when they built or moved in, or is that something the agents kept quiet about?
What is now in motion to help the victims?

The problem is that the kind of flood that once used to happen about every 100 years is now happening about every 10 years, for some reason.

No one dredges rivers, or rarely.
We built on land that dose absorb water and concrete, roads and such mean less run off.

Same water, more concrete, less land to cope with the rain fall.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Did these people realize they were in a flood area when they built or moved in, or is that something the agents kept quiet about?
What is now in motion to help the victims?

The problem is that the kind of flood that once used to happen about every 100 years is now happening about every 10 years, for some reason.

No one dredges rivers, or rarely.
We built on land that dose absorb water and concrete, roads and such mean less run off.

Same water, more concrete, less land to cope with the rain fall.

Wasn't a lot of that land swampy back in the old days and it got drained for farming?

Relapse wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Did these people realize they were in a flood area when they built or moved in, or is that something the agents kept quiet about?
What is now in motion to help the victims?

The problem is that the kind of flood that once used to happen about every 100 years is now happening about every 10 years, for some reason.

No one dredges rivers, or rarely.
We built on land that dose absorb water and concrete, roads and such mean less run off.

Same water, more concrete, less land to cope with the rain fall.

Wasn't a lot of that land swampy back in the old days and it got drained for farming?

Not sure but we have drained land for farming yes.
All the new building, roads, and such have not helped areas ability to handle such excess volumes of water.

I know we cannot help that so much but some places around where inlive are on land flooding or run off since my grandfather was a kid. And they build there....

What can ya do, your gonna flood one day. Irts a fact, the land was run off. Now you live in run off land.

Contemplating a job opportunity to UK. I've filled enough of these to dampen my hope of applying for the job...

Kilkrazy wrote:Take great care if you go and fiddle with stuff in the river, it's easy to fall in and drown.

The Lostock is only about three, three and a half, feet deep at its deepest around here and there are plenty of parts where one can get snagged. Dont worry

jhe90 wrote:

Once your in a powerful flood, getting out very hard. Plus debres
Be very careful

As I said earlier it has gone back to just about normal now and provided it does not rain too much it should stay this way. Besides one does not go in alone.

Still, thankyou for your concern guys There is also some strange rubble - it looks like Limestone - that I want to check out. Its been washed down and lodged at a common snagging point and begs the question as to where it came from as most local rocks are Granite. Depending on what type it is it could mean that either the riverbank upstream has collapsed (bad), one of the three tunnels under the motorways has been heavily damaged (very bad), something that should not be disturbed has been awoken (Cthulhu bad) or its just some random debris (good).

@ this wetlands discussion:
Draining the wetlands was an incredibly stupid idea and building on them even more so. Building on floodplains is positively Darwinian. Another issue is the number of trees being cut down. Trees take in a lot of water and as you cut them down that sponge effect is reduced. One tree? Not so much. 10 trees? Thats some waterlogged ground. More? You might want a submersible home.

A lot of the flooding in Central Manchester took place right by my house! Thankfully, we're far enough in from the river that we weren't affected.

I say 'we', I was away at the time - I wasn't sure if I was coming back to a flooded house until today.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Take great care if you go and fiddle with stuff in the river, it's easy to fall in and drown.

The Lostock is only about three, three and a half, feet deep at its deepest around here and there are plenty of parts where one can get snagged. Dont worry

jhe90 wrote:

Once your in a powerful flood, getting out very hard. Plus debres
Be very careful

As I said earlier it has gone back to just about normal now and provided it does not rain too much it should stay this way. Besides one does not go in alone.

Still, thankyou for your concern guys There is also some strange rubble - it looks like Limestone - that I want to check out. Its been washed down and lodged at a common snagging point and begs the question as to where it came from as most local rocks are Granite. Depending on what type it is it could mean that either the riverbank upstream has collapsed (bad), one of the three tunnels under the motorways has been heavily damaged (very bad), something that should not be disturbed has been awoken (Cthulhu bad) or its just some random debris (good).

@ this wetlands discussion:
Draining the wetlands was an incredibly stupid idea and building on them even more so. Building on floodplains is positively Darwinian. Another issue is the number of trees being cut down. Trees take in a lot of water and as you cut them down that sponge effect is reduced. One tree? Not so much. 10 trees? Thats some waterlogged ground. More? You might want a submersible home.

Sorry, I"m used to the Upper Thames where people drown fairly often.

Most of Britain isn't drained marshland. The Somerset Levels is the biggest area. They of course had very bad flooding a couple of years ago. Run-off from concreted surfaces contributes to localised pluvial flooding, but really the UK is mostly farmland and capable of absorbing a lot of water. The problems arise because either so much rain falls so quickly, or so much rain falls so continually onto already saturated ground that there is nowhere for it to go.

As far as building on floodplains goes, you only need to waterproof houses by a couple of feet to make them highly flood resistant. This can be done in various ways; floating platforms, piles, or just by waterproofing the walls and doorways and putting in a sump to cope with any minor ingress of water. This last method can be retrofitted to most houses at some degree of cost (about £20,000 if I remember correctly.)

Planning Regs that make proper provision of Flood Defenses vital would be a start. Also Climate changes, as a professional archaeologist this is a simple fact it might not be human intervention but it does and we need to change with it. Equally I'm moving to a town in the middle of the fens so I can't talk!

In the news today, some people in the north are saying this kind of flooding simply would not be allowed to happen in the south of Britain.

Having seen the floods in 2007, 2012 and 2014 along the Thames, plus events in the Somerset Levels, and the south-west, I don't believe this is true.

The nation needs to pull together to challenge the crap we get from the government.

Flooding is extremely difficult to prevent. Building bigger defenses in one place means even more water ends up downstream where the defenses need to be even stronger.

The consequences of a break when the water levels are so high near the end of a river's flow will tend to be even worse than otherwise, so it's gotta be really over engineered to account for dramatic events.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the government's control over this stuff is less than people think.

That is completely true. The Jubilee River on the Thames diverted flood water around Maidenhead and Windsor, but delivered it so much more quickly to Datchet and Staines that the flooding there was even worse.

However there are various measures that can be taken, such as jacking up houses on piles, waterproofing houses, and stockpiling mobile flood defence equipment like temporary barriers and pumps.

The good people of Cumbria will sleep soundly knowing that David Cameron is on the case.

If I know the Prime Minister, his solution will probably be to get Osborne to reduce the VAT on waterproofs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Contemplating a job opportunity to UK. I've filled enough of these to dampen my hope of applying for the job...

We need the US Navy, not the US Army

I don't really have opinions on political stuff, but this image has been making its rounds on twitter.

 Compel wrote:
I don't really have opinions on political stuff, but this image has been making its rounds on twitter.

Gonna have to be boathouses, by the look of it.
Pretty looking country beyond the flood area, though.

Build on piles. Have a canoe handy.

 Compel wrote:
I don't really have opinions on political stuff, but this image has been making its rounds on twitter.

Beautiful lakeside development opportunity with stunning unobstructed view of the verdant Cumbrian countryside.

Easy sale.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the news today, some people in the north are saying this kind of flooding simply would not be allowed to happen in the south of Britain.

Having seen the floods in 2007, 2012 and 2014 along the Thames, plus events in the Somerset Levels, and the south-west, I don't believe this is true.

The nation needs to pull together to challenge the crap we get from the government.

Tragically this is exact what people voted for, they might not have been bright enough to figure it out but 'low taxation and small government' means measures such dredging and proper flood precautions kind of get lost in the shuffle, note this is not a Tory bash, Millibland and his monkey cabal wouldn't have done any better.

My Fianncee's folks live in Formby, North of Liverpool, and we are travelling down there tomorrow for new year.

Their garden is flooded a bit but nothing in the house.

Its just the constant rain after the pre christmas storm, and with it being so wet all the time just now the water just cant go anywhere, with more rain forecast over the new year, i hope we aren't stuck and the house stays safe.

They arent near any rivers, its just the volume of water coming from the sky!

Its awful for those in Cumbrian and York though.

 Da Boss wrote:
Flooding is extremely difficult to prevent. Building bigger defenses in one place means even more water ends up downstream where the defenses need to be even stronger.

Definitely. To build on what Killkrazy said, the new amazing flood defences in Windsor (where the Queen and people with lots of money live) simply achieved the removal of the flooding to Chertsey (which had never before really experienced it). Flood defences often seem to operate on a 'get rid of it from this area' basis without considering the longer term consequences.

With regards to taking advice from the Dutch, I am sure we could easily build flood defences to a similar level, but it is similar to winter trains here as opposed to Russia/Canada. That is to say, flooding has historically never occurred enough or been enough of a problem for it to be worth the level of investment that other countries may have put into it. With rising global water levels combined with British economic reliance on the property market, we may well see that level of priority begin to change over the next decade.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
The good people of Cumbria will sleep soundly knowing that David Cameron is on the case.

We absolutely will not

Another big one on the way tonight. Joy.

I hope its not as bad as previous and it doesn't make the flood-waters to much bigger :( horrible time for all folks affected, and i know Cumbria quite well from annual family holidays there.

The maximum predicted for this one is only about half that which fell during the record breaker (highest rainfall in a single day ever recorded anywhere in Britain, and speaking as someone who was under it, I can well believe it) a month back, which itself was on the back of a months heavy rain, so hopefully this one will be far less severe.

As a Mancunian of 40 odd years I though I knew rain, but having moved up here a few months ago, turned out I was wrong.

First thing I noticed when I arrived was that everyone talks about the weather, good or bad, all the time, and about 5 minutes after that I was doing it too.

Good luck to everyone over there!

Massive flooding here in Missouri as well. We received something like 6" of rain over the weekend.

David Cameron on the case? Might as well drown ourselves now.

 master of ordinance wrote:
David Cameron on the case? Might as well drown ourselves now.

"Prime Minister, the North is completely underwater!"
"The... North?"
"Yes, Prime Minister, the North."
"The North... North London?"
"No, Prime Minister, further than that."
"...Cambridge?"
"Further."
"Further than Cambridge... Birmingham? I've never liked Birmingham."
"Still rather far off the mark, Prime Minister."
"Really? You don't mean Scotland, do you? You know I don't care about Scotland."
"No, Prime Minister, the North of England, below Scotland and above Birmingham."
"North of England..."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
"...Below Scotland..."
"Right again, Prime Minister."
"...Above Birmingham?"
"Correct, Prime Minister."
"...No, no you've lost me there. Are you quite sure you're alright? Maybe go and have a lie down on one of the Commons benches. Below Scotland and above Birmingham indeed! If there's such a place like that I'm quite thankful to have never heard of it. It sounds dreadful!"

 jhe90 wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Did these people realize they were in a flood area when they built or moved in, or is that something the agents kept quiet about?
What is now in motion to help the victims?

The problem is that the kind of flood that once used to happen about every 100 years is now happening about every 10 years, for some reason.

No one dredges rivers, or rarely.
We built on land that dose absorb water and concrete, roads and such mean less run off.

Same water, more concrete, less land to cope with the rain fall.

Wasn't a lot of that land swampy back in the old days and it got drained for farming?

Not sure but we have drained land for farming yes.
All the new building, roads, and such have not helped areas ability to handle such excess volumes of water.

I know we cannot help that so much but some places around where inlive are on land flooding or run off since my grandfather was a kid. And they build there....

What can ya do, your gonna flood one day. Irts a fact, the land was run off. Now you live in run off land.

Actually, half of any civil engineering project is designing drainage systems to ensure new improvements don't have a significant impact on the site's drainage. Your town isn't going to flood because leaves clogged a couple of DI's.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
David Cameron on the case? Might as well drown ourselves now.

"Prime Minister, the North is completely underwater!"
"The... North?"
"Yes, Prime Minister, the North."
"The North... North London?"
"No, Prime Minister, further than that."
"...Cambridge?"
"Further."
"Further than Cambridge... Birmingham? I've never liked Birmingham."
"Still rather far off the mark, Prime Minister."
"Really? You don't mean Scotland, do you? You know I don't care about Scotland."
"No, Prime Minister, the North of England, below Scotland and above Birmingham."
"North of England..."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
"...Below Scotland..."
"Right again, Prime Minister."
"...Above Birmingham?"
"Correct, Prime Minister."
"...No, no you've lost me there. Are you quite sure you're alright? Maybe go and have a lie down on one of the Commons benches. Below Scotland and above Birmingham indeed! If there's such a place like that I'm quite thankful to have never heard of it. It sounds dreadful!"

Brilliant! Never change.

Flooding latest.

There is flooding in Wales, and the River Loddon at Wargrave where it enters the upper Thames, is very high.

If it floods in my area this year, it will be the fourth time in nine years.