[Growster...]

"A French drain on a Welsh hillside"...

Call Dylan Thomas - sheer poetry!

[al78]

Wettest autumn for England and Wales since 2000 now.

[RubyRed]

 About 7 weeks ago, after torrential rain, our 12ft x 20ft cobbled yard was 18 ins under water. The water ended up seeping through the old brickwork and flooded 2 rooms downstairs. Further up the village a small holding was badly flooded and after phoning fire brigade they were told to take stuff upstairs. Hmm. Not easy with animals. 5 hours later and with dozens of houses ringing including us, an engine with crew arrived at my neighbours. 2 hero lads from the village were helping everybody and even fetched 2 pumps to help us. When my neighbour asked the crew to use their big bore pump they refused. It will contaminate it they said. Dumbfounded he was asked wtf are you doing here then. Another crew member told my neighbour it was a pr exercise. He has since lodged an official complaint. 

[WeavingGryphon]

About 7 weeks ago, after torrential rain, our 12ft x 20ft cobbled yard was 18 ins under water. The water ended up seeping through the old brickwork and flooded 2 rooms downstairs. Further up the village a small holding was badly flooded and after phoning fire brigade they were told to take stuff upstairs. Hmm. Not easy with animals. 5 hours later and with dozens of houses ringing including us, an engine with crew arrived at my neighbours. 2 hero lads from the village were helping everybody and even fetched 2 pumps to help us. When my neighbour asked the crew to use their big bore pump they refused. It will contaminate it they said. Dumbfounded he was asked wtf are you doing here then. Another crew member told my neighbour it was a pr exercise. He has since lodged an official complaint. 

What type of water?
Sorry, family member is in Fire Brigade and I can maybe clarify.
That could be the main pump for filling the tank on the appliance which squirts the water out onto fires.
Since it's the big one for fire fighting you don't want to use them when there's a chance of something in the water contaminating it. Because if anything happens it could damage the pump and engine. You could get oil or sewage in that and then it's contaminated which takes it off the run until it's cleaned, fixed or replaced.  That will make your fine engine useless. You can't use it if you don't know what's in the water, you can take from rivers and sea but flood water is a different matter as anything could be in there.  They have been sent out to be helpful, but have to remain ready to go to an emergency where life is at risk so they can't do as much as they'd like.

[John]

I wrote up some thoughts about this flooding and what we can do to help. Floods – the answers in the land

Strikes me that the fire brigades could be equipped with specific flood pumps but I suppose we're back to money. Thing is the sums involved are very small when you look at the cost of floods. According to HMG we spend £0.8 billion on flood prevention but flooding costs £1.4 billion on top of that. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Another thought - perhaps the fire brigade could pay for flood pumps and assistance via a charge to the insurance companies. After all, it saves them money.

[WeavingGryphon]

I wrote up some thoughts about this flooding and what we can do to help. Floods – the answers in the land

Strikes me that the fire brigades could be equipped with specific flood pumps but I suppose we're back to money. Thing is the sums involved are very small when you look at the cost of floods. According to HMG we spend £0.8 billion on flood prevention but flooding costs £1.4 billion on top of that. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Another thought - perhaps the fire brigade could pay for flood pumps and assistance via a charge to the insurance companies. After all, it saves them money.

That is a rather small amount to spend on flooding.

The SFRS (Scottish Fire and Rescue Service) has them, 6 different types, but the bosses see it officially as not their responsibility. They are there to rescue people and it's an additional service they can provide. So if there's no danger to life it's not priority. Local remit will vary. Up here they could charge you because it's an additional service that they can do, but in flooding their reluctant to do so. Since one of the methods requires them to drain the tank on the engine to pump water out, they'd be putting lives at risk because they might not be able to refill the tank. Since the local mains water sources including hydrants could be contaminated because they often burst and things get in-breaking the engine. Had there been danger to life then sod the machine, but only if there's danger to life. 
Also in flooding travel is hampered, especially when your average engine has a 7 and 1/2 tons weight load capacity (12- 15 tons total average) so they need to be gone in an instant. They don't have the time take the engine out of circulation to pack up and it would delay turn out. Putting other lives at risk in a large scale ongoing incident where danger to life can occur any time. Were it a quiet day they'd probably be happy to help out, but in a large scale emergency they can't afford to do it.

The council should have to set up a service to drain houses, they should have access to water pumps. Gully suckers, the drain cleaning machines are designed to deal with manky water. There are companies who will do it, any that dig holes or plant hire companies. But locating one in a flood and getting there first.

[John]

Interesting to get the fire service viewpoint and reasons - which aren't obvious to outsiders.

To me it's obviously going to get worse in coming years and money spent on flood defence schemes (esp. green engineering) is an investment that will cover its costs. Of course there isn't a bottomless purse but maybe we should rethink our priorities.

[WeavingGryphon]

Interesting to get the fire service viewpoint and reasons - which aren't obvious to outsiders.

To me it's obviously going to get worse in coming years and money spent on flood defence schemes (esp. green engineering) is an investment that will cover its costs. Of course there isn't a bottomless purse but maybe we should rethink our priorities.

You are totally spot in.

When I asked about this I was told Moral pressure is one of the things first taught to you when you join, people may be very rightly upset. You will feel for them and be also upset. But you have to remember what your point of your job is-to save lives and they need to be ready to go to save those lives. Whenever NOW might be. They will totally feel for the upset home owner, but they have to keep the engine in a fit state to operate and get to emergencies asap.

If they found out who said it was a PR stunt the bosses will be fuming as that was unprofessional and they have upset the home owner unnecessarily. I think they could and should have said "We'd love to help, but we have to be ready to go in an instant to a life threatening emergency. This dirty water could break the pump or engine and stop us from being able to work and save lives. With the floods hindering travel we'll have hard going as it is".

Himalayan balsam is getting the blame for flooding in areas because it has a very shallow root system, is out competing native waterway bank plants. The shallow root system means it doesn't hold the banks together well causing subsidence and other problems. Especially on canal banks. Their trying a killer rust in the Norfolk broads to try kill it.

[grinling]

Goosegirl keep quiet about where your surface water is directed to as legal changes have meant this is no longer permitted.
Lincolnshire was water logged in early October and rivers have overspilled, causing the already bad road surface to disintergrate!!!
One river has created a lake around the farmhouse as it has breached....farm land so environmental agency leaves it.
Most notable is that over winter crops like wheat has not been planted.
Local fields still resemble lakes.

[jezza]

Hello does any one know why the Dutch river in Goole was low water when the River Don was over topping answer the out let from the other rivers was blocked  so had no where to go a simple solution is to dredge the rivers 10 feet deep there's no way will the rivers over top  why does the television insist that rivers have burst their banks if the burst there would be more devastation   jezza

[grinling]

dredging increases the amount of silt deposited. catch 22

[mumofstig]

dredging increases the amount of silt deposited. catch 22

That's why it was always done regularly, doesn't seem to be done much at all nowadays - so the question is who should be doing it? Planting more trees and water catchment plans are for the long term, but for now perhaps dredging is the right answer.

[grinling]

different agencies do it, some are environment agency,some are councils, some are landowners.
But rainwater run off  has also caused problems.
Ditching wasn't possible here due to the wet weather and ditching can only be done outside bird breeding season.  Some farmers have now done some, hence muddy roads but rained all day again