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The UK is wetter than usual.

2K views 34 replies 14 participants last post by  Foxhunter 
#1 ·
#6 ·
There is political talk of no expense to be spared to get things back to normal, but at the moment the farmers are in a terrible state with livestock and ruined supplies. Environmentally they are talking about the floods taking a very long time to subside, but I rather hope that they are just being pessimistic.
 
#15 ·
I read a blog with many English members and they are saying some of the severity and damage is due to land use laws and environmental policy. Land use laws as in housing over traditional flood plains. Main environmental policy issue is they decided back in the 90's it's bad to dredge the rivers, what happens when a river silts up and you get a lot of rain? Worse flooding. Guess there's a quote from one of the countries politicians saying they trusted the Environmental Agency on the dredging issue because they were supposed to be the experts and now they know they are not.
 
#17 ·
Don't worry, the Mother Country has made the news here in Australia :-p

Hope our UK/Ireland members are staying fairly dry and that their ponies are too.
 
#20 ·
With this exceedingly heavy continuous rain, flooding is inevitable. What had made this worse is that the rivers have not been dredged in years. It use to be done by the Water Board but since that national company was sold off and privatised, the companies have not done it and the duty has fallen to the Dept. of the Environment.

Fact is that the ground is so drenched that water is coming out of the ground. One man, whose house was a couple of feet above the flood had pulled a floorboard up to find two or three inches of water under the floor.

I have only ever helped clear one house that had been flooded with rainwater and it was a mess with silt and dead animals in there. These people in the more urban areas have also raw sewerage floating around.

It is throwing it down with rain at the moment, high winds coming in again. I am in no danger of flooding (unless the roof gets blown away!) but keep thinking of those who are suffering.

One thing I will say, the rural communities will pull together and help each other. One farmer with 500 ewes to start lambing is now flooded, had nowhere to put them as his barns are under water. Within a couple of hours other farmers, out of the area had arrived with wagons and taken the ewes to lamb them.
 
#21 ·
One thing I will say, the rural communities will pull together and help each other. One farmer with 500 ewes to start lambing is now flooded, had nowhere to put them as his barns are under water. Within a couple of hours other farmers, out of the area had arrived with wagons and taken the ewes to lamb them.

Yes social media is really helping and organising people to send forage. Tesco has been using it's lorries food lorries to deliver big round bales and farmers all over the area are doing their bit to rescue and feed animals.

Charlotte Dujardin has also been helping to coordinate offers of stabling aid via her management team and webpages.
 
#24 ·
It did make our CT news
There was local flooding in the UK in 2007 - the year we left and my last drive home from work was along a lane that had turned into a fast flowing waterway.
It was nowhere near as bad as it is this year
I think you're going to float away - so I hope you end up closer to me!!
 
#25 ·
It did make our CT news
There was local flooding in the UK in 2007 - the year we left and my last drive home from work was along a lane that had turned into a fast flowing waterway.
It was nowhere near as bad as it is this year
I think you're going to float away - so I hope you end up closer to me!!
Heavy rain today, my husband was nearly defeated by the puddle (mini lake) at the bottom of our hill, I'm now just waiting for my boys to get home from school and willing the bus to make it through the flooded roads. The police have blocked the road off as a car broke down in a flood, but I think they are letting some vehicles through. Then to get my daughter home who is at an after school thing. The normal fairly busy raod outside my house, is worryingly quiet...
 
#26 ·
Ugh, flooding is the worst. We had some crazy ones, here in the mountainous regions of the US during September. Lots of homes were lost, and school was closed for a few days. Crazy!

I hope everything clears up soon ):
 
#29 ·
#30 ·
Fridays storm brought for deaths with it. A woman was killed when masonry fell on her car. Another eight month pregnant woman driving home, a man on a cruise when a freak wave hit the ship, he was in his cabin and another that I cannot remember.

The winds were the worse. It was quite frightening, they were so strong.

Diners in a seaside restaurant had to be taken into the kitchens when the waves were breaking over the sea wall bringing with it, stones that came through the windows. They had to wait for the army to come to get them out and the vehicles, designed to withstand land mines, had the windows broken from the stones and the material covering the back was torn wpaway with the wind force. Guess that is a Valentines Day they won't forget!

Today is calm and was sunny, as usual because I have just hung laundry outside it is clouding over.
 
#31 ·
#34 ·
I know it isn't localized and you've gotten a lot of rain. One forcaster said the jet stream is "stuck" where it is aiming all that rain right at you. But if the EA is doing this in Somerset what are they doing in the rest of the watersheds that is impacting flooding? I don't know myself as I don't live there but I do know locally there is a lot being done and not being done that has increased flooding by our state/federal gov't agencies.
 
#35 ·
Darrin, it is probably true about the pumping station. Certainly of the rivers had been dredged and the silt not dumped in the estuary as it was last time it was dredged, it would not have stopped the flooding but it probably would not have been as bad.

Part of the reason why rivers have not been dredged is because the Royal Society For the Protection of Birds and other bunny huggers, badger protectors and vole victors said it would damage their habitat. Also the European Union makes many of the laws over wildlife protection. Those making the laws wouldn't know a rat from a rabbit let alone what is for the best for the land.

Floodin is throughout the country, towns and village around the River Thames and the River Severn and several others are flooded water tables are so high that water is just spouting out the ground.
Britain is wet and getting wetter. The government want to build thousands more houses which means less run off leading to more flooding.
 
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