Floods of home...

[sally_maria]

Latest news - the water pumping station at Tewkesbury has been flooded and there will therefore be water shortages until at least Wednesday. It really is an odd world, when floods lead to a lack of water.

We finally got round to uploading the couple of pictures Mum took of our road turning into a (very muddy) river. They're on Flickr here but the best one is under the cut.

Comments

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

Wow!

*Boggles*

And you're right, it is indeed an odd world when floods lead to water shortage.

I hope you all stay safe.

[sally_maria]

Thank you.

Apart from the water supply thing, we're over the worst now - as soon as the rain eased up the drains were able to cope. The problem with Tewkesbury is that it's right where the Severn meets the Avon, so it's got not only the rain that fell locally but also the rain that fell in Wales. They have flooding a lot of winters, but this may be even worse than 1947, the previous benchmark that all floods have been measured against.

[pavaneofstars.livejournal.com]

Goodness!! Stay dry and safe. :)

[sally_maria]

Thank you - hopefully we're over the worst now, but towns on the flood plain are getting hit by all the rain that fell upriver a couple of days ago.

[rustica.livejournal.com]

I don't know which I find stranger, that a water pumping station is not waterproof, or that a surfeit of water can lead to a shortage! :)

That's an impressive picture. I ought to upload some of the ones I took today. I think the village may actually have been cut off last night, but the main road has now reopened, so I will be able to get into work tomorrw *does rain dance*

[sally_maria]

What's the point of a flood if it doesn't stop you getting to work? ;-)

Apparently the water was still pouring across the road half a mile or so up the hill this morning but the drains are coping as it comes down the road. It's just that the pumping station is near the Severn, so they are getting the rain that fell in Wales on Friday as well as the local stuff.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Impressive! My Mum's just been telling me the latest tales from Winchcombe, where a lot of her friends had to put up stranged refugees on Friday night. The bit that hit hardest was when she told me about some visitor who had phoned the Pittville Pump Room to ask if they were holding any Festival event, only to be told, "We've become a refugee centre for flood victims." It's always very jarring when things like this happen in real, live towns in "civilisation."

[sally_maria]

Exactly - it's very easy for us to forget that Nature is something to be wary of, when we've managed to tame it so well most of the time. Natural disasters are things that happen

out there

, not on our doorstep.

Have you seen the BBC Gloucestershire web site with a lot more pictures of the county under water?

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I was being-a-student-in-York in the flood in June. We got an email telling us to not flush the loos for number ones, have baths or showers, and requesting that we 'delay doing the washing up', as the sewers were close to backing up. This caused a great deal of hilarity: since when have students needed to be encouraged to delay washing up?

After last August's flood here in Ash Vale, Guildford BC have been excellent and discovered exactly where and what the problems are (our problem was that the Blackwater was full, and there was no where else for the runoff from the railway and roads to go, except our back garden), and put in place stuff to sort it - as a result, while the back garden is liquid, there is no standing water on top of the liquid.

From Cat macros: http://homepage.mac.com/talonvaki/_2007jul/donotwant.jpg

[sally_maria]

LOL - poor cat.

For us it was water pouring off Cleeve Hill, so as soon as the rain eased up, the water level dropped considerably. Our house is both back and up from the road, so it would have to be much worse to affect us directly, but there were houses that got flooded where there is a dip in the slope a bit further down the road.