njkmrs

Just seen on the local news that the town is flooded.
The Council have spent million's ,and I mean millions uncovering the river through the town as a way of making it more attractive.
The Town is now full of water to about 4 foot in places.
Who thinks up these schemes...

Helllllooooo..........

Turbohot

Not good. May the affected ones receive sufficient support to recover from their losses and to paddle through this out-of-control situation.

About the river uncovered, it's a difficult one, and such situations are comparatively very rare in the UK. Also, I don't know if Rochdale has been prone to floods tbh. If it was, then totally stupid idea. If it wasn't, really, then it could have been just one of them. Mind you, depends upon how high the river flows, there; normally, and how the flood source (they say it's rain that swelled the river) has been pre-assessed as.

When floods hit North Wales coasts, it was said (among one of many things said) that people who live that close to the sea should think before they live there, or what do they expect. Well, they didn't know that one day, even to get to their own houses on the land they may have to jump on a boat. That's because it doesn't flood here that often. We just don't know when something like that can happen, to be fair.

Justme103

iTrader: (2)

I have lived in Rochdale for 38 years & never known it to flood before.
Drove through yesterday & saw the river had flooded the college covering the out door seating area & totally flooded the car park area.

Turbohot

There you are.

Your statement supports the fact that the area isn't prone to flooding, with you last 38 years' personal experience testimony. This would have meant that the area is very low risk one, hence the river exposure. Council must have thought of making it look all close-to-Nature and serene for the residents when they exposed it.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Don't worry, there will be ministerial visits and £millions in aid........just like the Thames Valley......oh....wait......Not in the south, is it, Rochdale?

Peedee

iTrader: (4)

I love how the fire brigade have turned up completely suited and booted up to the hilts in safety gear carrying 3 tonne of risk assessments, then the Army turn up in Normal day to day kit and crack on with it.

hodgy0_2

"Once in a 100 year" flood events seem to happening every 5 to 10 years recently

Maybe time to recalibrate what "normal" is

dpb

The government didn't bother with all those wealthy Wiltshire farmers either...

njkmrs

Yes that's my point really.
Never flooded before, all this money, sorry, all my money wasted, and now the place looks like the Nile Delta ffs.....

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Never mind Rochdale have you seen Kirkstall rd in Leeds and York centre

johned

My sympathies go to all affected and i think the government and maybe even the EU should be giving financial help to all those people who have had their homes businesses etc ruined but to expect that is maybe going to far.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Too busy wasting it on mad stuff and giving £billions to ex-Eastern Bloc countries, so THEY can have better equipped factories than us......

Turbohot

I saw the York scenes on Sky News today. One Toyota was nearly submerged in muddy waters on a suburban street with some nice looking 1900's mid terraced houses. The official helpers were wading through the water with their body up to their chest in it.

Sky News correspondent Kay Burley tried to entice people to talk about their plight and blame someone for it, but people seemed to be quite calm and content, perhaps due to having put in comfy hotels and consuming warm foods. One woman said along the lines- "It's bad but at least no one is dead".

It's clear that it's going to take some time for people's home to be dried and liveable again and the losses recovered, but the affected interviewed people's resilience seemed to be remarkable.

More flood warnings are in place. Hope it doesn't cause any or much destruction and inconvenience.

cuprajake

iTrader: (11)

Living in rochdale i personally think its a few thing's thats caused it in rochdale, we have had bad rain before but never flooded

the volume if rain,

The fact that there bulding sommich housing taking over natural drainage

Poor drain maintenance

Alot of the rds in rochdale and surrounding areas in the last yr have been re surfaced, but the cheap way, were they lay tar and then just put loose chippings down, chippings rhat have all gone down the drains!

Opening the river in the town centre wont of helped but its not the cause

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

It's often poorly maintained drains that cause flooding. Councils used to send out a gully cleaner regularly to suck out debris from roadside gulleys, (drains). Nowadays there are plants growing out of quite a few.

Here in North Lincs, they have had one fatality and one near fatality due to NOT draining roads properly, where water flowed diagonally across a road on a hill with a bend, making cars aquaplane across the road. The fatlaity ended up impacted in an oncoming lorry. The near one rolled the car four times into a field. And walked away.......

David Lock

It's a desperate situation for so many and I feel for those affected by this. May be I am being too pessimistic but I think things will only get worse over the coming years. And I don't believe that there are realistis measures that can keep many houses dry. Yes there is some tinkering at the edges to help a bit but nothing that can cope with the sheer volume of rainfall which just keeps coming. These houses are doomed, No one would buy one even if subsidised insurance was available. So heaven knows what families with a mortage are going to do. They simply cannot afford to start again.


The only way forward would be for gov't tp buy these ruined houses to free up people who want to move and ban any building that is on or near a flood plain. But I can't see nice Mr Osborne agreeing to this - can you? Personally I would cancel HS2 and spend the billions on above.


Nature is winning by a country mile.


David

dpb

I hope it doesn't freeze solid next month , We always pay for unseasonably warm weather in uk

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Always? We've had two or three warm-ish winters since the two very cold ones, and the summers have been much as always..warm and wet.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

What I've found is that routine maintenance has ceased and cleaning only happens as and when its reported; Certainly round here at least.

Have you reported the blockages? using the appropriate channels?

My council has a online system that actually seems to work; https://dudley.firmstep.com/default....w9mk&HideAll=1

I've used it a few times for duff street lamps and gulleys blocked with leaf debris and they sorted it the same working week....even potholes!

Now, in contrast to roads controlled by the highways agency; Drains will remain blocked and potholes will remain indefinitely. Its ironic that the worst roads surfaces round here are the A roads maintained by the HA

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

As for rivers flooding; Houses and towns on floodplains...even if they haven't flooded for 500+ years...its still a floodplain.

New Orleans is a prime example...and in that case the worst hit areas were the newest; The old town was much less affected. Defences built in the last century allowed wetlands to dry out and allow city expansion on previously un-buildable land. People's ancestors both public and officials that once lived with flooding and dealt with in more traditional ways (they never buried their dead because flooding would exhume the bodies) were lead into a false sense of security that their city was now totally immune to flooding. How wrong could they be? It was arguably a freak event; but only in recent recordable history could it be considered a "one-off".

We should learn from their complacency. We should also look far more heavily into flood management other countries use...storm channels don't really exist in this country yet they are common in Europe. Yes they are big ugly concrete things that spend 95% of the time empty, but, when the need arises, they get water from land to sea very quickly. Far quicker than our silted-up rivers, and yes, what of dredging? It seems our government would rather want to erect semi-temporary barriers every time there is a flood warning/alert - why does it seem like these barriers are solving the problem and not the cause? (insufficient river/drainage capacity).

And the towns without air-raid sirens. Thankfully the ones that are known to flood regularly retain them...the ones that had "one-off" floods weren't so lucky; All our air raid sirens round here were removed in the mid 1990's (Blair-era again )...did anyone think these could serve further purpose? Floods? Terrorist attack? Putin losing the plot?

Its seems everything we suffer in this country in the here and now is a direct result from removal and reduction of the contingency efforts and planning for the worst that was once in place, where current economics are put in presidence for worst-case scenarios with complacent short term outlooks. Its everywhere; Our lack of road and rail capacity capacity to serve our population, our reduction in energy generation capacity when our consumption increases, our inability to supply water in times of high demand and low rain fail and our inability to get rid of it when it rains too much.

nick172sport

iTrader: (6)

my wife and daughter donated loads off food to the town hall in rochdale plus clothes bedding etc there are 180 elderley people affected by the flood and as well a lot off our friends have donated from heywood

Turbohot

Excellent.

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

I read an interesting document during the summer months while sitting in an airport, about UK farmers growing maize; what was interesting was that it referred to an 'engineered' version of the crop which could be grown in harsher climatic conditions, specifically stating the North of England. The document predicted that widespread growing of this crop, and particularly late season harvesting, would have a detrimental impact on soil conditions, specifically through erosion, where rivers would be silted up and compaction following harvesting, combined these factors would increase water run-off from farmland and the article predicted flooding beyond that seen in the north of England, this was without adding unpredictable weather events into the equation.

I don't know much about the farming landscape in the north of England - there may be no farms within 50 miles of the current floods, but it was something which came to mind having watched the images on television in the past couple of days.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I would say farming has contributed to the changes in underland flow of water, maybe not in Rochdale as that is run off from the Peak district. But England's terrain has been massively changed by farming going back for centuries....those ancient hedge rows and stone walls weren't made by nature - nor was the land as level as it is now.

hodgy0_2

undoubtedly human factors come into play - changes in farming, inappropriate housing developments, badly maintained drains and water courses etc

but some of the flooding is simply down to the record levels of rainfall and record river levels

as I said earlier - and I suspect the people at the DOE are beginning to realise is that these types of floods are now pretty normal


what they are probably worried about is the new "extreme" weather/flooding events

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Indeed record rainfall and extreme for recent times. However the records only became more accurate as time has progressed. I doubt the accuracy of rainfall records older than 100 years; I believe it was only until the 1930's that English rainfall data was properly collated. Whilst it can be used as a rough guide: i.e did it rain (yes or no), did it flood (yes or no) the actual amounts measured can't be compared, nor could historic flooding be measured or directly attributed to excessive rainfall due to other unmeasured contributing factors, such as a river changing its course; be naturally or otherwise.

That's just an example, but a poignant one I feel; Parts of the Severn by me floods, its got worse as time has progressed to the point emergency barrier systems have to be installed during any alert. What is not so obvious though is that the river's depth at some points has halved over a 50year period; You can literally walk across it in summer its that shallow, yet historically it was deep enough for boats to travel on; the moorings in the village (that now floods) attest to this, yet no boat can travel this section of river now....but the flooding has got worse.