General Chat

On the news the other day a farmer had asked for people to stop driving up and down the roads by his farm. His farm is under water and every time a car/van etc drives past it causes a wave which spreads itself across the fields and into his house, causing more damage :-( :-(

jude

PS..Phyl, sorry for spelling listake.

OneFootInTheGrave.....beautifully put:)


The water level is going down very slowly, but the wind is getting up fast!!
Might all change again in the morning.

jude

PS...thank you Phill

An enormous number of front gardens have been converted to hard standing areas which stop ground water being able to soak away.

The combination of these little bits of ground is actually a huge acreage which no longer soaks up water.

While agreeing with Graham that dredging wont solve the Somerset Levels flooding completely, surely greater river capacity coupled with land drainage will help in the future?

Chatting with people who live in Horley, Surrey – they said that the town was cut off for about 3 days when the weather system first struck. New houses had been built on one flood plain, with fantastic flooding defences. Unfortunately the water was displaced elsewhere. Now permission has been given to build on a different local flood plain. Although the defences might be just as good, the problem is only being shifted elsewhere.
The plans show plenty of tarmac and buildings, but very little natural/grassed open areas (including gardens) for water to soak into.

I live on the Somerset levels. It has flooded here every year since the last ice age. It is what is known as a wetland area. It is naturally boggy. Since the middle ages people have attempted to drain the land here with varying degrees of success. But you can't stop nature doing its thing. There will always be a certain amount of flooding here.
There is talk about dredging the river; but I've seen land flooded that is nowhere near the river; so this will only have a limited impact.
The main problem is people keep building houses on the flood plain. Then they wonder why those houses get flooded.

I drowned my car last night .....flash flooding cought me out!

It is not as though they were unaware there would be problems, a month ago, on the 7th January, the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee, issued a highly critical report which questioned, how further budget cuts of over £300 million over the coming two years, would affect the ability of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), to respond to emergencies such as the devastation caused by the flooding over Christmas and the New Year as it was already struggling to cope with the £500 million of cuts from it's budget since 2010.

The politicians, instead of posing for the camera while they try to score political points, need to get a grip and declare a national emergency in the worst affected areas, while they posture and play the blame game, peoples lives, homes, and livelihoods are being destroyed - do they not realise that they are acting out the saying - Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I think its time that these"Placement " people of the Quangos Et Al should be told "Shape up or Ship Out" there are too many of them incapable of doing the jobs they are allocated,The Idea of spending Millions on a Wetland for Birds rather than protect peoples homes and livelyhoods is a national disgrace. As for the Prime Minister being a Pillock,Sorry I totally disagree, Saying so is an Insult to a Pillock.**M**.

I agree Phyll, but am in danger of provoking 'wrath' if I say so, so will keep quiet on that subject! That is a very kind gesture Ann C, We used to live almost on top of a river, but moved in 2011 to be nearer to family (grandchildren we never saw and now do!), and thank goodness we did as I understand that since we went the rain has been horrendous both in 2012 and this year. We now live well away from any rivers or sea so are not affected, but we do feel very very sorry for ALL the people living through this nightmare.

I'm quite sure I am no the only one on these boards who would offer shelter to a family who have been flooded out - think we're all a very caring lot on here :-D

About time the poiticians looked after this country instead of sending money abroad. We don't seem to count for much anymore. My heart goes out to anyone who is having to deal with all this flooding.

I quite agree with Jude regarding PM.

I don't know where the stuff brought out of the ditches went on the back of the River Board tractor but I would have thought it could have been used on the land.

I think that, since the inception of capitalism in this country at the beginning of the nineteenth century we have lost touch with the way the land works.

AnnCardiff - what a lovely kind gesture to make <3

How Kind, Ann - but Cardiff is a bit of a way.

Am watching our neighbouring water meadows carefully. Drainage
was put is some years ago after a lot of flooding but you wouldn't know it now. Went and had a look yesterday but had to carefully wash my boots afterwards as the dog owners don't want to get wet!!! If it floods into houses it won't be the sewers causing the main problem :-| :-|

We were going to look at our two 'streams' and the Thames today but we got hit by a massive rainfall and rushed home to dry out. We've had lovely sun since (typical) but it looks as though it is clouding over again and I can hear the wind.

My heart goes out to those under water.

AnnC...what a lovely thing to say:)

We are'nt flooded out yet but its very close and we are getting ready to move the car. We had a warning on Wednesday (via email, phone and text) but it was ok then...ooo err.
Brick built house opposite has been flooded in the past few days for the 2nd time since New yr...their bedroom is on ground floor. Their garden has disapreared, so has their neighbours garden. The Boat club opposite is flooded too.
We are on the banks of the River Wye!!

Will try to add some pics on my blog. Not looked on the blog in yonks.

Ann...don't panic, we can stay with my sister if we do get flooded. l have a suitcase almost packed in bedroom...lol

jude

PS....The Prime minister is a pillock!!

edited

On a visit yesterday to the Somerset Levels, the prime minister suggested that cut backs in river dredging under the last Labour government made the area more liable to flooding - more or less saying the conservatives were not to blame.

he was quick to shift the blame for the floods on the Somerset Levels on to the Environment Agency and Labour, however he failed to mention that he was warned, in a letter from the leader of a farmer's organisation in August last year, of the danger of the Somerset Levels flooding and the need for urgent action to be taken. The government rejected the request in the letter for funding for dredging. It was only after the devastation caused by the recent storms, that earlier this week, the Prime Minister authorised additional funding to enable dredging to begin

Before the Prime Minister attempted to wash his hands of any blame he would have done well to remember that it was a previous conservative prime minister - John Major, who was in office at the time the Environment Agency came into being, it was created by the Environment Act 1995 and came into existence on 1 April 1996.

Since 1996 as a result of decisions taken by the Environment Agency in conjunction with, governments of all persuasion since then, there has not been a national dredging policy, one of the reasons funding for dredging was reduced was because of changes in waste management legislation making the cost of disposing of dredged material more expensive.

Governments of all political persuasions may have saved a few million pounds by cutting back on dredging, and we know who has made the biggest cuts to services in recent years, any savings made by the cuts, will be dwarfed by the hundreds of millions of pounds now being spent, to sort out the devastation caused by the recent storms and floods, albeit dredging is not the be-all and end-all to solving the problem.

One thing that's been puzzling about how the marooned Somerset Levels residents are coping - if the sewage is backed up in to their areas, what's happening to their own bodily waste??

'Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink'.

('The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - a Devon Poet).

Down the road apiece from the Somerset Levels, not alone are we deluged by water but now there is an awful overflow of minor Royalty & panicky politicians being driven around on the backs of tractors, gawking/rubbernecking at the dejected residents who are trying to survive in their wet lands & moat houses.

It smells - and I'm not referring entirely to the putrid stagnant water.

The town here on the Surrey / Hampshire border is surrounded by water meadows which flood whenever we have heavy rain. These serve to protect the town centre since it was flooded in the late 1960s. These have been flooded now since before Christmas although the level has gone up and down. Some new houses have been built right on the edge if the meadows and fortunately so far have stayed safe and dry. It is a hilly little town and we are up a hill on the outskirts of town with fields behind us, then open countryside for miles.

Several of the roads around us have been flooded recently, one looked like several tipper trucks had unloaded lorries full of shingle along a 300 foot stretch of it, where the stones had washed off the fields. They needed bulldozers to shift it..

We also had a mini tornado a couple of weeks ago which did a bit of local damage and brought down many trees and fences not previously downed by the bad weather.

At the house in Somerset we are only five minutes from the sea but again up a hill, we also have water meadows round the town there, which have been flooded for weeks.

We drove through the Somerset Levels on Tuesday, a very sad sight.

Blowing a gale again here now and hailing, just as Himself has decided to take the aerial off the chimney as it is shaking about so much and making an awful noise in the wind and we have people staying tonight.

M.

I'm personally lucky. I may be 3 steps down from the road, but there are 3 steps up to the house, and as I'm on a hill (ground slopes away on all sides of the house - I'm 6 ft higher than next door, and we're a terraced row!) Great fun when it's icy :-| :-|

However, as the centre Winchester is in a valley and one long flow of underwater springs, there are a couple of flooded areas in town, but the drains were miraculously cleared for the first time in years, about a month ago (otherwise the centre floods).
But the river Itchen has well and truly burst it's banks, the water meadows are under water (as they should be) and in town quite a few gardens that back on to the river are flooded.

The centre of Romsey is flooded, and a couple of major roads leading to it are closed due to flooding.
Quite a few villages around about are also flooded, as are some New Forest villages.