Anyone Suffered Flooding During the Recent Bad Weather??

We're quite lucky as we are high up, feel for the unfortunate homeowners that get flooded out...

BB

Fortunately not, we are also fairly high up. I hope everyone is ok

Not yet, Tonbridge has been hit pretty badly but we're on the edge of town. We have a flood alert in place.. the quiet little stream at the end of the garden that feeds into the Medway is currently a raging torrent.. and we have more rain tipping down as I type.

Warning are up, there has been done coastal floods near us but luckily I'm up a hill.

Flood warnings in place around us, happily there has been some new build going on around us and part of this has been increased flood defences.

Hopefully these work, because the river is up, and it's tidal at this point.

Not me. Live up a hill.

K

The river's been very close to our door since Xmas Eve , it peaked at 5.03M on Xmas day and it's getting near to that level today ,it's due to peak on Tuesday at 5.1 ,our cottage floods at 5.2!
All the homebrew is safe though it's in the loft conversion. :

Do you have sandbags handy?

TRXnMe said:

Flood warnings in place around us, happily there has been some new build going on around us and part of this has been increased flood defences.

Hopefully these work, because the river is up, and it's tidal at this point.

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I tend to be a cynic when it comes to municipal flood defences.

Some pillock in Westminster decided it would be a good idea to build two new villages in Biddenham turn, an area of about 2 square miles immediately west of Bedford, where the Great Ouse makes the last of a series of big loops. In theory it makes sense: the area is within easy walking/cycling distance of Bedford station, making it ideal for London commuters, and the new bypass makes it easy to get to Northampton, Luton, Milton Keynes and the M1, and (if they ever complete the damned thing) will take A6 through-traffic out of Bedford town centre. However Biddenham turn is also a natural floodplain, so a large dyke has been built to prevent Great and North Denham from being inundated.

The natural floodplain lowered the level of floods by giving the river a huge area to expand into just before the town, something it no longer has. Biddenham dyke means that the river is now much higher during a flood, making the floodplain bigger both upstream and downstream, so that buildings originally built outside the floodplain are new well inside it. Just east of the town centre you can actually tell where the original floodplain was because, in their considerably greater wisdom (compared to the average Whitehall nincompoop) the Victorians put Russell Park there rather than houses. The new expanded floodplain covers thousands of houses in that area alone. So because of the "flood defences" built for the Denhams, future floods in Bedford are both more likely and will cause more damage to more homes.

We've about 50 in the garage & 3 submersible pumps , we had a power cut early hours Boxing day morning and our next door neighbour's pump (4" outlet) cut out , they had 2" of water throughout the ground floor before he could swap to the backup generator.

Pearlfisher said:

The river's been very close to our door since Xmas Eve , it peaked at 5.03M on Xmas day and it's getting near to that level today ,it's due to peak on Tuesday at 5.1 ,our cottage floods at 5.2!
All the homebrew is safe though it's in the loft conversion. :

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Have you been flooded before?
Must be a terrible experience..

BB

Twice last winter , in 2007 to a depth 1.5m .

Being in coventry we are surrounded by hills so never get weather as bad as every where else in the midlands
We are on a hill so should never flood but others may and I really feel for them
If any one in the area needs help let me know and I will help if possible :thumb:

I tend to agree about some flood defences, however, there is nothing downstream of us apart from the sea. Also, although the area we live in has been designated as a flood plain for the last 20 years or so, it's not flooded in over 80 years, in effect the only real difference the flood defences have made is to reduce our insurance premiums :)

On a side note, those saying you live on a hill, check the drains and streams near by are clear. A colleague of mine lives quite near the top of a hill, but there is a stream running behind his house, a couple of years ago something blocked the path of the stream and during heavy rain he was flooded when it burst its banks

My Brother used to work for "Floodline" a call centre service where you phone up and tell them you are flooded and they say, "Yes, I see that."

But they would take the address of the flooded victim and update a database so they could tell other people who were flooded, that, "Yes you are flooded".

Apparently my brother had to stop himself from laughing at them when the exchange went:

"We are flooded!"
"What is your address please?"
"Emm, 2 Water Meadow Gardens"

He said he had to bite his tongue and not say, "You do know what a water meadow is don't you?"

I'm sure it's harsh and nasty and expensive etc. But.... if you live on the flood plain of a river, then, well, no surprises, it's going to flood, that's why it's called the flood plain. If you don't want to get flooded, then don't buy a house on a flood plain. If you already live there, then sell it and move. It really is that simple.

PaulCa said:

I'm sure it's harsh and nasty and expensive etc. But.... if you live on the flood plain of a river, then, well, no surprises, it's going to flood, that's why it's called the flood plain. If you don't want to get flooded, then don't buy a house on a flood plain. If you already live there, then sell it and move. It really is that simple.

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I didn't buy our cottage ,it's my OH's ,I'd never have bought it. We did try to sell in the summer ,but couldn't find anywhere we both liked even though we were willing to pay 100K more than we could get for ours.

We've this view from our loft conversion - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25610933

PaulCa said:

I'm sure it's harsh and nasty and expensive etc. But.... if you live on the flood plain of a river, then, well, no surprises, it's going to flood, that's why it's called the flood plain. If you don't want to get flooded, then don't buy a house on a flood plain. If you already live there, then sell it and move. It really is that simple.

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Sadly, many of the houses built recently in this country have been built on flood planes. If you see new builds that have only got a garage and utility room on the ground floor then it's almost certainly on a flood plain

Those people who own older buildings that are now in danger of being flooded, many of them weren't on flood plains when they were built, either changes in weather, or changes in flood defences (like the example above) or simply additional buildings upstream of them creating run off instead of allowing the ground to soak up water have all put previously safe homes at risk of flooding.

The only realistic option for many is to brace for the flood, do as pearlfisher and their neighbours have done, invest in pumps, sandbags and other flood defences. One chap in York who appeared on a documentary a few years ago had simply tiled the entire ground floor so it could be pumped out and mopped clean, all electrics on the ground floor were waterproofed, he'd decided he couldn't afford the loss involved in selling and moving, so prepped the place for flooding instead.

TRXnMe said:

Sadly, many of the houses built recently in this country have been built on flood planes. If you see new builds that have only got a garage and utility room on the ground floor then it's almost certainly on a flood plain

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No its not, its because developers have realised that if you spread accommodation over 3 or 4 floors you can use a smaller footprint and thus squeeze more houses onto a development.

Jeltz said:

TRXnMe said:

Sadly, many of the houses built recently in this country have been built on flood planes. If you see new builds that have only got a garage and utility room on the ground floor then it's almost certainly on a flood plain

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No its not, its because developers have realised that if you spread accommodation over 3 or 4 floors you can use a smaller footprint and thus squeeze more houses onto a development.

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Then it must only be down here then.

You can not get planning permission to build on a flood plain around here unless the building is as I described it, ground floor must not be used for living accommodation, been like that for around 10 years now.