R2OK!

iwarburton · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 2133 Location: Northumberland

Hi all. Up here in Northumberland, we're clearing up after yesterday's huge storms. The floods were so bad that last night people were taking hours to make short journeys. What was it like where you live?

Ian.

essexlady · Joined: 10 Dec 2006 Posts: 348 Location: Essex

Sorry to hear that Ian, I do hope it gets sorted out quickly and people can get back to normal. Here in Essex we have only had a sprinkling of rain but then East Anglia is famously one of the driest areas of the UK, although we had heavy rain earlier this month.

Helen May · Joined: 10 Dec 2006 Posts: 19333 Location: Cheshire

Hi Ian

We switched over to BBC NE and Cumbria to see the local news at 10.25 last night as my parents are still both up there. Did you have any damage? My Mum is at I'd guess the highest point to the west of the city so was fine, she said the street lights went on about 3.45! My Dad is near the airport but no problems thankfully.

Amazing flood levels, you've probably seen this http://www.twitvid.com/PBWG8. taken from the Sage.

We had a few spots of rain but sunshine for the rest of the day!

H
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mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

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mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

Whitley Bay

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Lord Evan Elpuss · Joined: 10 Dec 2006 Posts: 3415 Location: Cloud Cuckoo Land

Down my way, yesterday was mainly overcast, dry and hot. Also very humid. There was a point in mid afternoon when I thought we were going to get a storm but none materialised, instead by the time the footie started we had bright sunshine! The humidity made it somewhat uncomfortable to work in, but of course that's as nothing compared to what the poor folk of the midlands & north-east have suffered.
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John W · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 3367 Location: Warwickshire, UK

Yesterday we turned up at the massive Tesco car park at the Ricoh, Coventry, to meet daughter, about 1.00pm, just as heavy rain started, ten minutes later we were still in the car and hailstones the size of ice-cubes were bouncing off our car!

Storm lasted about 20 minutes. Ventured out, car looked undamaged

Eh, we now found we were on an island surrounded by six inch deep water, a new river was flowing towards the M&S shop, people running everywhere, apparently the Tesco checkouts were flooded and over 100 people were being evacuated via a side door, and there was daughter and grandaughter standing miserable in the crowd - had to leave her loaded trolley behind - but hadn't paid.

I believe disappeared flood plains are a problem in modern towns, the rainwater has less soil to soak into, drain systems fill up and streets flood. I expect the drain systems in retail parks, with their huge areas of tarmaced land, are designed to cope with above average rainfall but not something like 25mm in one hour which I think was what we had in WMids/Warks/Leics yesterday.

I posted a few weeks ago that the River Leam in Warks reached 4m / 12 foot deep at one point at a bridge and near the village pub. That sort of problem could be alleviated if the rivers were dredged occasionally which has to be done on canals (though I think canals are dredged to stop barges getting 'grounded'). After weather like this the rivers in relatively flat counties (like Warks) fill up with silt so their levels stay 'high' and so flood more often.
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John W

iwarburton · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 2133 Location: Northumberland

We didn't suffer any damage ourselves but there were amazing pics on local news of what some people had to deal with.

Ian.

ruddlescat · Joined: 16 Sep 2010 Posts: 18010 Location: Near Chester

Well it happened to me back on April 29th when my car which I had owned for only four months got flooded out in a sudden torrent of water when a river close to my property burst its banks causing total devastation including washing away vast quantities of gravel from my drive which I had only just replaced

It was only last week that I got the car back and the insurers finally sorted the matter out

Frankly they just didn't seem to know what they were doing and I had to go on line to do fairly extensive research to convince them how they should be dealing with the claim

I guess I was a bit of a 'test case' and I told them that I hoped they had taken note of what I said as they were likely to have a great number of similar claims in the very near future Smile

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ColinB · Guest

My wife works for a major contract vehicle leasing company with over 6,000 vehicles on the road, and you can imagine the problems they're now facing. A handful of vehicles parked outside one client's business had over £55,000 of damage done to them by hailstones in just under 10 minutes.

mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

ruddlescat · Joined: 16 Sep 2010 Posts: 18010 Location: Near Chester

ColinB · Guest