Island Flooding

I just think there will always be a limit to how much water you can shift in a certain amount of time, if you try to contain it it will always find a way out.
Contain it in a river, pipe, waterway etc,.and it will just rise, higher and higher, it actually needs a large area where it can spread out, but these areas dont have that, other than the towns, its running off the hills at a fast pace.
Its flash flooding really, due to massive amounts of rain.

 

Just caught up on this. Best wishes you you, Sheal. Hope everything turns out ok. Stay safe.

 

Thank you Rustler. Things are starting to return to normal here, thank goodness!

 

The way those rivers were running I would say they were being dredged by nature.

Surely dredging is not the answer, lower rainfall is.


And we cant control that one.

I'm sure Bangladesh will be setting up fund to help out.

 

The river I was watching was flowing as fast as it possibly could, when a river takes out a bridge its usually getting a lick on.

I just think in these days we look for someone to blame, if you want to blame anyone, try God.

Believe it or not, and I know its hard to understand, but there are some things that humans just cant control, if they manage to do it short term, that is the best we can hope for.

You can call it climate change or whatever, but we wont win in the long term.

 

@pete, you're right, we won't win in the long term, as long as we keep insisting that nature plays by our rules instead of us playing by nature's rules.

We have vast areas of wasteland, deliberately managed as wasteland, burning vegetation andpreventing trees from growing (much of the moorland ). We stick impermeable concrete, tarmac and such everywhere, build towns in flood plains, and then ignore all natural and man made drainage systems because maintenance costs money.

When I say 'we' do all these things, I really mean government, national park authorities, certain land owners etc, ie the ruling class, leaving the ordinary folk to suffer the consequences.

It's a shame really. We all know it's going to rain. We know we'll get storms. We know we can manage the country in a way that mitigates against such events, yet those with the power and authority to make it happen choose to ignore it. It's like when Devon flooded. The farmers got blamed for cutting down the trees, even though it was the government that just a few years earlier, told them to cut the trees down to make the land more productive.

 

The rivers through Keswick, down to Cockermouth and on to Workington mostly run shallow on bedrock covered by rocks and pebbles, no significant dredging can be done here in my opinion, the rivers surrounding valleys are now a moving sea, they are a natural flood plain anyway.

The flood defences worked, but where just not high enough I can remember the outcry at the proposed height during the planning stages until today, and they would not have been as high unless the people of Cockermouth and surrounding area had not fund-raised towards it. An extra couple of foot would probably do it and it could be mostly out of sight until needed by being of the float up type, so when the water gets to a certain level, it pushes the defences higher, but mostly...you never see it

I also don't buy into the now quoted drivel that defences stopped 6ft of water invading Cockermouth, whether it is 1ft or 12ft of water running through the town, its a flood and requires the same clean up time, money and distress from property owners and causes the same damage overall.

Steve...

 

It kind of looked a bit silly anyway, bearing in mind this flood ripped up roads and bridges.

A concrete wall would be better, but would it be acceptable?

I can only guess the glass was there in an effort not to make the defences look awful and still allow a view of the river in more normal times.

There are things you could possibly do, but would they fit in with the area?
I presume the locals wouldn't want the place to look like a concrete jungle.

 

Mr Cameran's government slid £116,000,000 out of the flood defence budget, probably to pay for his plane upgrades

 

Is the flooding receding there now and is the situation improving at all @Steve R ?

 

@Sheal I'm pleased to read things are getting back to normal for you now, I hope you haven't got too much damage.