where's Wafflycat ....!

[Arch]

Luckily it seems the surge hasn't been as bad as predicted. Mind you, I've been to Great Yarmouth, and some bits of it could have done with being washed away (It was a few years ago, it might be really nice now). Actually, I think it was mostly just the terrible wax works museum, and I guess the exhibits would mostly float...

Living a fair way from the sea (albeit in a city that with a river that breaks it's banks every year, several times), the best bit of all this is hearing the shipping forecast, and the forecaster saying "gale 9, storm 10, sometimes violent storm 11". There's something exciting but comforting about hearing that when tucked up safe and warm in bed...

 

[wafflycat]

So, has the combined forces of the nature decimated eastern England yet? I have heard that small parts of Yarmouth have been flooded? Updates please.

Thankfully East Anglia is still here. There has been some flooding, but it could have been a lot worse. Thankfully, it's minor compared to what a worst case scenario would be.

Some flooding along the coast
http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news...gory=news&itemid=NOED09 Nov 2007 08:21:27:860

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/News/2007/071109floods.aspx

 

[Crackle]

Well I nipped down to take some piccies and discovered some cyclists were still commuting in to work!!

 

[Pete]

Very interesting - I watched a documentary about the 1953 floods which argued that the disaster was dumbed down because it was post coronation year and the post war boom, and so they didn't want to ruin it with bad news. Particularly because the emergency services were crap, and it would make people in power look bad...

That's possible. I was recently reading about a particularly severe train crash at Harrow and Wealdstone: I think it was in the same year. Over a hundred fatalities, the worst in Britain since World War 1. Was the story of that disaster played down a bit as well, and for the same reason? Certainly emergency services are much better, and our railways have got a lot safer since those days. Have our coastal defences also got safer?

 

[Kirstie]

Have our coastal defences also got safer?

That's what they were alluding to on radio 4 this morning. Also communications and forecasting has become more accurate. A big problem in 1953, I seem to remember from the doc, was actually informing people what was about to happen. Lots of people just died in their houses - they didn't have a chance.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Well I nipped down to take some piccies and discovered some cyclists were still commuting in to work!!

That's taking the primary position to new extremes !

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

I watched and interesting documentary about the '53 flood and it implied that the flood was 'forgotten' in order not to damage the veneer of the optimistic new Elizabethan age.

In addition to creaky sea defences, the biggest contibutor to the deaths was primitive communications. A warning phone call to a police station further down the coast simply wasn't adequate.

 

[wafflycat]

Lots of pics of the results of the storm & flooding

http://new.edp24.co.uk/cs/photos/edp_readers_photos/default.aspx

 

[laurence]

I watched and interesting documentary about the '53 flood and it implied that the flood was 'forgotten' in order not to damage the veneer of the optimistic new Elizabethan age.

In addition to creaky sea defences, the biggest contibutor to the deaths was primitive communications. A warning phone call to a police station further down the coast simply wasn't adequate.

i saw that - chilling film. the stories from the families, including a boy whose siblings were drowned in the same room as him, all trapped overnight by the rising water.

the lack of communication meant that Canvey Island wasn't warned and it was hit very hard by the water from the north as well as the surge up the Thames. local authorities were dealing with their emergencies and didn't pass on the the extent of the damage/flooding so the bigger picture wasn't known until afterwards. being at night didn't help either as no one saw the water coming, literally.

Holland took a real pasting though.

L

 

[wherryman]

Well the river near here topped its banks and flooded and came up the road to within 50 feet of my front door - fortunately theres a great big marsh in the way that took most of the water though the boatyards were under as they were last year, it never used to flood this bad until the Environment Agency raised the banks where it used to top over into the marsh and now have forced it all upstream to the village ! Just like the old locals told them would happen.

 

[wafflycat]

Well the river near here topped its banks and flooded and came up the road to within 50 feet of my front door - fortunately theres a great big marsh in the way that took most of the water though the boatyards were under as they were last year, it never used to flood this bad until the Environment Agency raised the banks where it used to top over into the marsh and now have forced it all upstream to the village ! Just like the old locals told them would happen.

Would that the EA/Highways authorites & the like actually spoke to & listened to what many an old local can say. It's not just at your place, it's here too. Since home village was by-passed by the A47 (it used to go through the village), the drainage of the new bit of the road was put straight into the local beck, without work to the beck to allow it to cope with the extra capacity & change of drainage pattern - and as a result the number of times the beck has overflowed has gone up dramatically.

p.s. glad you remained dry!