Floods-Winter 2020

Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
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I am sort of surprised there is no thread on this. Some of you at least must be suffering significant hardship as a result of this horrible weather.

(Perhaps all the flooded people have lost their internet connections! :p )

For me it is a bit alarming since I am expecting to move house within the next month or so, to Hay-on-Wye, which has been flooded! :eek:

Not in Hay as such, a mile or so away up the valley, "My" future home is fine, it is at least 20M above the normal river level and on the edge of a 1Km, or so, wide flood plain. If flood water ever reached me there would also be Angels in the sky blowing Trumpets, or at the least, a beardy bloke at the top of the hill building a big boat with Animals queueing up to get onto it! :p

However, I do recognise that it would be very easy indeed for future flooding to render the local roads impassable, there was deep water on the roads last week when I went down there to drop some stuff off, even in my Transit Luton I was a bit apprehensive of going through it. I wouldn't have attempted it in my BMW and would have had to turn round and find another route or abandon the trip, and that was before the really torrential downpours that has occurred since and caused the massive flooding in Herefordshire.

Even a Landcruiser wont go through much more than 2 foot of water (70Cm IIRC) without modification and in any case, driving through flooded roads is really quite dangerous, you don't know how deep it is going to get, you cant see where the ditches are, and It doesn't take much current to wash a car away and then you drown when it rolls over in the deeper water :(

And with deeper water, its like Mastermind, once you have started you just have to keep going. The Bow wave is what keeps the engine bay dry and the wheels on firm ground. Once you get beyond a certain point, you cant just stop and reverse back! you just have to keep going and just hope that you will make it.

But I can see that, if this is going to be the way of things, perhaps one of the things I am going to have to do is be a bit prepper in the future and ensure that I always have a month or so food, fuel (And even drinking water perhaps. Flooding can contaminate water supplies due to sewers overflowing) in stock at all times,

And make sure that I have a working generator in case electricity supplies are interrupted.

Hey ho Joys of country living and all that! :p
 
My office is like 20m from the River Wey, and it's been dangerously close to Bank bursting.

Thankfully my house is at the top of a hill, no risks.
 
I am sort of surprised there is no thread on this. Some of you at least must be suffering significant hardship as a result of this horrible weather.

I'm waiting for the ice caps to melt enough to give me a seaside view, apart from that I'm not stupid enough to buy a house on former marsh land/floodplains or next to a river at the same elevation so I have never been flooded
 
On top of cliffs on chalk so unless the sea level rises a couple of hundred feet soon I'm not in any risk. Towns north of here have flooded in the past but not recently. Did have to drive a van through a flooded road once kept the revs up and the engine is higher up anyhow. A lady who took her rather humble small car through the same really shouldn't have she didn't make it more than half way through. The insurance company weren't happy I'm sure I'm guessing it would be a write off or at least they'd have to rip out all the carpets and seats and the electrics would need looking at.

Hey ho Joys of country living and all that! :p

How terrible for you :p
 
I live in the South East, I can't remember it ever flooding.

I feel bad for the poor people who are being affected by this though, it looks awful and more rain on the way.
 
I live in the South East, I can't remember it ever flooding.

I feel bad for the poor people who are being affected by this though, it looks awful and more rain on the way.
Depends how old you are. There was a bad one in 68, and the North Sea flood in the 50’s which claimed hundreds of lives.p, including about 58 on Canvey island.
 
I live in the South East, I can't remember it ever flooding.

I feel bad for the poor people who are being affected by this though, it looks awful and more rain on the way.


Guildford flooded badly in the past, as did Farnham. (The Yvonne Arnaud theatre had a plaque in it showing just how high the flooding got and before they did an LA river job on the Wey, Farnham regularly flooded up as high as downing street.)

Denis flooded parts of Guildford only the other day and a friend of mine was in Farnham and the river was literally inches from going over the top. Another day heavy rain and Farnham would have been flooded too!

In many ways there is nothing new here, but it is still a shock when it happens.

As I keep saying, just thank your lucky stars we are just having mild weather and some heavy rain.

Had we been smitten by a rerun of winter 62/63 we would have a butchers bill running into the tens of thousands by now! :eek:
 
Guildford flooded badly in the past, as did Farnham. (The Yvonne Arnaud theatre had a plaque in it showing just how high the flooding got and before they did an LA river job on the Wey, Farnham regularly flooded up as high as downing street.)

Denis flooded parts of Guildford only the other day and a friend of mine was in Farnham and the river was literally inches from going over the top. Another day heavy rain and Farnham would have been flooded too!

Fair enough, but that's the south not the south east :)
 
Driveway was flooded, found it's from the chap next door who doesn't seem to understand how drainage works (or whoever laid his garden didn't).
2 bags of quick drying cement later and I have a nice dam to keep the water out, anyone elsewhere need my expert services? :p
 
I live in the South East, I can't remember it ever flooding.

I feel bad for the poor people who are being affected by this though, it looks awful and more rain on the way.
There was loads of flooding around Surrey only a few years ago. I was working in Leatherhead at the time and it was bad around there
 
We intentionally moved to higher ground last year (partly due to flood risk) - lot of places been hit by it around us but so far impact on us has been minimal - couple of days a lot of water on the roads we use but fortunately not enough to block them though quite a few roads near us were blocked.

What worries me and events like this don't inspire me that I'm wrong - as I've posted about before on these forums from keeping half an eye on global weather patterns it looks to me like serious flooding is going to be a thing over the next few years with a possible catastrophic peak event that will dwarf current flooding events which unprepared for will be very bad but could be dealt with if we were prepared... but we are always reactive to stuff like that :(
 
2 bags of quick drying cement later and I have a nice dam to keep the water out, anyone elsewhere need my expert services? :p


Did you use "Postcrete"?

That stuff is mental.

"Sets in ten minutes" No way!

You literally have seconds to get the post in the right position and it is done. It is the concrete equivalent of Superglue!

:D
 
New house is on very edge of a flood zone in Cardiff East.

No problems though as reens built by the Romans (I believe) are still serving their purpose!
 
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