This rain

Sorry Margaret we got your sun.

Our local river was dredged to give the villages in the valley some relief from floods but only a certain stretch was done so the 'undone' bits still flood and we still have horrendous jams in and out of our village which is the only one with no flooded roads.

I feel so sorry for people who have their homes flooded - that doesn't happen here (or rarely) and we all moan about detours caused by flooded roads. We really have nothing to complain about.

It's raining. Again. Where is the bright sunny morning we were promised?

Just found this

http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/good-luck-planning-helped-Tewkesbury-avoid-worst/story-20502080-detail/story.html

That's interesting! How far up is it dredging, Galen?

I look out over the Severn and I regularly see a dredger.

The Somerset levels used to be under water and were drained by Dutch engineers brought in hundreds of years ago; they are below sea level. But if they could drain them all that time ago, how come, with today's technology and knowhow, they could not keep on top of drainage even if the rain was in excess of normal? Dredging of the Tone, the Parrott and the ditches is not the only answer, but surely we have more resources these days? The Severn itself is becoming silted up as it isn't dredged any more, and the rain and storms just bring more and more silt down the rivers which feed into the Severn.
Perhaps the Environment Agency just thought that the easiest option was to let it all go back under the water. They are more interested in spending money on nature reserves than saving good, productive farmland.

durhamjen DS lived off the Leaman Road in one of the Victorian terrace houses. After his house was sandbagged, a while later they were all told to evacuate as the road was expected to flood. He went back to his girlfriend's flat near the hospital. He said it was the weirdest night he has ever experienced. They went out for a walk and the city was in total silence, there was no traffic, hardly anyone on the streets, everybody was just hunkering down and preparing for the worst. The main road near them was lined with coaches and ambulances waiting to evacuate all the patients from the hospital in case that was threatened by floods.

As it was the water did not go rise to the heights feared and his house, hospital etc were never in danger, but, for him, it was a night not to be forgotten.

Those Somerset river drains have been made stupidly straight if they had sensible meanders and proper flood plains it would catch and slow down the water flow. Rivers are supposed to do this. Let them flood in the winter and deposit new nutrient rich sediment onto the fields.
It would also mean that the regular deposits of new sediment would, over the years, act to raise the level of the fields. Right now it is being wasted by just flowing out into the Bristol Channel. More reed beds and water meadows are needed.

Dredging is only a partial solution. Another solution which is working here is to neglect the upper un-navigable reaches and let them get messy. Trees are actually felled across the river in addition those falling naturally. The river gets it's bends back, spreads out and widens and holds the water back. Very good for wildlife too.
But our rivers have been dredged for navigation for centuries and the spoils put on the banks. Until two or three years ago we had a decade of hardly any dredging and they took the dredging away so the banks deteriorated too. Luckily for us things have been sorted here now. Hopefully 'lessons have been learned' (hate that expression) and Somerset etc will get their turn.

The Somerset levels have particular problems as the main rivers that drain it are tidal and excess water can only be discharged when the tide is very low. It is all also a very short distance from the sea. So there is very little chance of run off. what the

They have not had such bad rain for years. To pump water away you have to have a somewhere that is lower to pump it out to.
See this info.

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/10601978/Why-do-the-Somerset-Levels-flood.html
It is likely that very heavy rainfall itself brings a lot more silt into the rivers as it is running off the fields, which is probably why the environment agency say a lot of dredging in advance is only a partial solution to the problem.

The Somerset Levels are similar to the Fens but I don't think they have the same defences - sluice gates, permanent pumping, barrages and high banks - that we have. Dutch expertise was responsible for the original draining of the Fens and modern flood defences installed as a result of the 1953 floods. Everywhere you go here there are signs of flood prevention which benefits large scale arable farming. I suppose that up until now grazing pasture and meadows in Somerset have survived annual flooding but it must be devastating for farmers and home owners to have to endure what the current weather has thrown at them.

Flickety, we were living in York then. I still have the book of photos produced by the York Press to sell for flood relief.
My husband had an appointment one day at Pinderfields in Wakefield, but there was only one road open, so we cancelled as we needed to get back for the guests' breakfasts the next morning.
We were getting emails from Australia and USA to ask if we were okay, but we were on a hill.

Whether or not this is all due to "climate change", we have to start spending time and money on the consequences and then on prevention. If the Dutch could do it hundreds of years ago why are today's lot so incompetent?

There has been some 17cm (6") of rain this month in The South East with Kent badly affected. Yalding is on the point of flooding again.

Yes, I think a lot of people imagine water flowing into the house but often it just rises up via the drains, which is foul water, not just rainwater.

Goose it is amazing what a difference a slight incline makes. York had exceptional floods in 2000 and DS had a house close to the river but protected by flood defences, but not protected from ground water flooding. He thought his road was dead flat and was really worried as he had had the army in his road twice delivering sand bags, then more sandbags. The bottom of the road flooded but it obviously rose gentle along its length because his end was unaffected.

We went into Abingdon in 2007 to see the floods and the Ock pouring into the Thames. It was a spectacular sight. If floods threaten again the local authority usually make sure older people and the disabled get their sandbags delivered and put in place.

Like you FlicketyB I live in the Vale of White Horse, close to the River Ock, which causes the flooding problem locally when it overflows into the Thames. A few years ago (2007?) when there was flooding, my house narrowly escaped because I live on a slight incline, so the bottom of the street was flooded, but my end wasn't. However, I still have to pay a higher Insurance Premium as I'm classed as being at flood risk, although the house has never flooded (yet). I do get worried that if it does come to creeping up this high I won't be able to do much in the way of protecting the house as I can no longer lift up one of them blooming sandbags - let alone get any (as I haven't got transport)

Nfk. There was an interesting article in one of the papers yesterday commenting on the lack of huge floods in the Norfolk Broads and saying it was because the authority that manages the Broads fought tooth and nail to keep its independence when the Environment Agency was formed and kept their independence.

The authority that used to manage the Somerset Levels must wish that they had been as successful.

We are ok here but very soggy; however our local news is west country so all about the Somerset Levels and the poor people there. DH has complained for years about the failure to dredge the rivers, he says since the big ships don't go up to Gloucester docks any more they don' t dredge the Severn, nor do they clear out the drains on a regular basis. we can't help the weather but change of policy and sheer incompetence of the Environment Agency over many years has contributed to the problems. Even last year's hot summer did not do much to dry out the land. Money is found for overseas disasters (and I am not criticising that) but equal amounts should be found for disasters at home.

The Environmet Agency has - after a lot of jumping up and down by local folk - spent a goodly amount on dredging, embankments and dykes in Norfolk. Hopefully they'll realise this has been beneficial, despite their claims to the contrary, and get their act together in other areas.

Still raining in East Sussex and the forecast is rain until Sunday.

The Environment Agency had quite a good section on whether a particular address is liable to flood. We used to to prove that we were ok.

It really sounds absolutely horrendous for you all. Our bit of Norfolk has got off comparatively lightly compared with the rest of the country. I think it's nearly all dropped by the time it gets here. We're just a bit soggy although the flood plains are all under water, it's no worse than a normal winter.

All you poor souls with flood insurance problems, do the insurance companies calculate your flood risk by how near horizontally, you are to a river or do they take the height you are as well into consideration? I am just interested in this. It seems very arbitrary.