I've been out and about in Canterbury, Bridge, and Wingham today. If you never went to any of the villages alongside the Nailbourne, you'd be forgiven for questioning what all the fuss was about. Even the drive in to Bridge this morning saw a previously flooded road, now almost clear. However...
The ground is totally saturated, and water tables completely swamped, and wouldn't take any more rain for come time. Guess what?...yes, it pissed down this afternoon! Result was an almost instant rise in the river, and that road has become almost impassable to normal cars, in just a few hours.
I've been at the meetings with villagers, KCC, and the EA today, and I can tell you it's a very challenging situation to say the least. So much head scratching, planning, re-planning, flood controls being installed, re-installed, sewers being pumped out 4 times a day....it's relentless. They even used high capacity hoses to take water out of the rive one side of the main bridge, across the main road, and back into the river the other side in an effort to stop the bridge being put under too much pressure. These pipes were protected from the traffic by some metal ramps. However, the're on the brow of a hill, meaning cars were grounding on them as they passed over. So they then had to tarmac over them. Tonight or tomorrow, thay are being replaced by even bigger pipes, which will require the tarmac to be ripped up, and relayed again....and no one knows if this will work, or even it will have no impact downstream! There are numerous temporary pumps installed, and if just one of those fails, there could be very serious flooding.
All eyes now, are on Friday's storm of course. I'm back home now, but we're expecting a call tomorrow, and will most certainly be assisting again from Friday through the weekend.
The residents however (most of them anyway) have been superb. The gratitude they've shown for us knocking on doors every 4 hours in the pouring rain, just to check they're ok, and that their toilets are working etc, has made this potentially miserable job very rewarding. I hope to return in the summer, and visit the village and people again, just to see what it should be like.
Meanwhile, back in the Chertsey/Staines area, 2 of my friends' homes are now flooded. Part of me wants to pack up and go help up there. Incredible scenes in my old back yard. The Thames seems to have dropped marginally at Chertsey, down to 1.37 metres when I last looked, but for how long I don't know. There can often be up to a week's delay before they feel the impact of upstream rain.
Originally Posted by: Jive Buddy