From: Cotty > On 21/7/07, John Sessoms, discombobulated, unleashed: > >> >Yeah, and listening to the news tonight - we get the BBC via NPR - >> >sounds like it's still getting worse. >> > >> >Hope everything turns out alright for both of you. >> > Thanks. I have one more day off tomorrow (Sunday) then I'm back to work > - which means driving to the worst affected parts and filming it. Which > will be fun as I have a Land Rover. The only thing that slows me down is > all the abandoned cars. Shouldn't be a problem though - i know where it > floods bad when the rivers get full, which will be happening Sunday/ > Monday?Tuesday. Our flooding was just local runoff. The big rivers are > always 2 or 3 days later. That's when the real fun begins. > > According to an old neighbour, 1947 and 1963 were the last worst floods > in our area, previous to 1998 and 2000 (I think - my own memory is > soaked in wine). There's a particular mobile home site I will be keeping > my eye on - I know how deep it was last time, so I have a benchmark. > > What a sad sack of shite I am... > > Yessir, we're fine, well away from The Thames. Thanks. Reminds me of something I might have mentioned here before.
The old VW Beetles would float. The local VW dealer built on a flood plain next to a creek, Crabtree Creek. Came a big storm - what the weather guys called a 100 year rain, because it happens on average about once in 100 years - and the creek overflowed onto the flood plain and washed 50 or so brand new VWs down the creek. They were strung out about 10 miles or so downstream from what I saw. We got a couple of those 100 year storms in one year, and several more flood events in the next decade. I think a lot of it was building in the flood plains increased the downstream run-off. It was a couple of years after a brand new shopping mall was built here in Raleigh; the biggest mall between Washington, DC and Atlanta, GA at the time. The mall, Crabtree Valley Mall, was *also* built on the flood plain, just about 5 miles upstream from the VW dealer. The first time it flooded, the Sears store manager took materials out of his home improvement department, braced and caulked all the exterior doors on the lower level so none of the flooding would get in. All he asked afterwards was for the mall merchants association and the land-lord to pay Sears for the materials he used. Couple hundred bucks ... They stiffed him. It was, after all, a "hundred year" storm, so who'd expect another one only a couple of months later. The second time, he braced and caulked the doors for the Sears store and let the rest of the mall fend for itself. Cost the landlord several million in repairs and all the lower level tenants suffered lost merchandise - lost business during the cleanup, which took weeks. Subsequently they built a lot of dry and semi-dry flood control lakes on the Crabtree Creek watershed, and adopted a flood control zoning ordinance. You can't build anything on the flood plain unless you bring in fill to lift the building above the 500 year flood line. Oh, and the VW dealer calls all his people in when it looks like Crabtree is going to flood again and moves all his cars to high ground. The mall has flood gaskets they put in place over all lower level entrances & the landlord caulks all the doors. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
