Have The Floods Affected You.

[kerny]

My in laws live on the banks of the river Severn near Bridgnorth Shropshire and yesterday the water came up to their flood guards on their house as the Severn has now burst its banks, but today the water came up through the floor of the house . They took the necessary precautions and lifted all the furniture a good two feet off the floor but that wasn't enough it's now at least three feet deep inside the house so they have had to evacuate their home and are now residing in the local pub "the father in law likes a drink".

I guess that you don't really think about it until it affects you.

Have any members on here been flooded ? I hope that none of you have been affected, but my feelings go out to those that have.

For me all they have to do to stop this from happening on this scale again is dredge the rivers for goodness sake.

[lakelandterrier]

More like stop building on the flood plains then get get surprised when "The Water Meadows" floods - that's actually happened in Tewkesbury
to be fair, since 2007 in Gloucester the Council & Environment agency are really good about ensuring all the streams & water course are cleared - every day or so in this weather. Just as well a,s we live 200 yards from a large balancing pond or "flood storage area" as it's now called.

[Bombardc2]

Haven't been flooded but the strong winds last week took a galvanised roof sheet off a customers workshop roof and put through the windscreen of my van.

Have to agree that dredging the rivers would really help.

[Pikey Dave]

2014; wettest winter on record- Floods blamed on lack of river dredging
2015; driest summer on record- Drought blamed on river dredging

I'm just glad that we're 105m ASL

[kerny]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

2014; wettest winter on record- Floods blamed on lack of river dredging
2015; driest summer on record- Drought blamed on river dredging

I'm just glad that we're 105m ASL

Talking about dredging.... The Ship Inn 100 yards from my in laws house has a painting of a large cargo sailboat on the river and you can only just see the top of the mast which just shows how deep the cut in the banking was over a 100 years ago , if that same boat was photographed now before these floods you would see the deck.

I hope that you are right about 2015.... we could do with another decent summer

[John Kennett]

Some interesting reading about the flooding here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...policies-homes

[Aries]

Anyone live in Taunton or near it?

Wondering how it was near the supermarket opposite the cricket ground?

I worked on the flood defences there and the bandstand many many years ago...

[kerny]

Originally Posted by John Kennett

Some interesting reading about the flooding here:
Drowning in money: the untold story of the crazy public spending that makes flooding inevitable | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Interesting reading that John. The humble tree is the answer

I have read somewhere that an average size tree can absorb a few hundred gallons a day so that article does make sense.

[Nos4r2]

It makes a change for Monbiot to make sense, but he does.

FWIW, there's still an awful lot of floodwater up this end of the Thames on it's way downstream.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by kerny

Interesting reading that John. The humble tree is the answer

I have read somewhere that an average size tree can absorb a few hundred gallons a day so that article does make sense.

So true, we all watch programs where some BBC wildlife bloke heads off to Madagascar or Borneo and gets us all worked up about the loss of their forests and how terrible it is that these people dare to cut their trees down, it is a pity but we do the same and have done for years, never quite figured why an African or Asian tree was environmentally more important than a british one.

We lived near an airfield that flooded every year, the owner lined the banks of the river with trees, within 5 years the flooding stopped.

These floods will affect all of us but we can't complain or blame anyone other than ourselves, we have created the environment we live in, we're causing climate change in order to have all the products we use in our modern lives, it's not only the flood victims of today we should be worrying about, it's our children's children who will have to deal with the selfishness of today.