Floods

[IC1967]

I don't remember all this fuss about floods when parts of Doncaster flooded. We just got on with it. These Southern softies need to harden up.

It's very simple. If you live in a flood plain you should expect to get flooded. When it happens please don't moan. If you don't like it, move!!!

[roversdude]

Correct but then again the rivers are not being dredged anymore
We had a very lucky escape - rented a farmhouse for the New Year in Muchelney Somerset, we left 2 days earlier than planned as the water was nearly up to front door - it's been cut off since, in fact the guy we rented the house from was on the One Show last week looking at his house from helicopter

[IC1967]

Dredging is a waste of time and only makes matters worse. It's just the 'something has to be done' reaction when things go wrong which we can't control. Why people always expect politicians to solve all their problems is beyond me. So what do the politicians do? They say they'll dredge the rivers because that's what the ignorant public demand. The politicians don't have the balls to just say it like it is like what I do. They aren't bothered that they're wasting taxpayers money and making matters worse. They are only bothered about placating an angry public in the short term.

Like I say, live in a flood plain then expect to get flooded.

If you have fallen for the guff that dredging is the solution then you need to watch this video.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+unintended+effects+of+dredging&docid=4832861635020189&mid=C1A590105D996FAAAB83C1A590105D996FAAAB83&view=detail&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=C1A590105D996FAAAB83C1A590105D996FAAAB83

[wilts rover]

Oh dear, our resident idiot has returned to the village spouting rubbish over something he knows nothing about.

The Somerset Levels are not a flood plain (or the areas that are making the tv headlines aren't, around Taunton and Bridgewater are flood plains which have been built on so water has been kept back off these and on the Levels to stop residentail areas flooding). They are an artifically created landscape of drained marsh, like the Isle of Axholme and the Fens. Hence the rivers across the levels are higher than the surrounding landscape, 10 feet higher in places, so once they have overflown they need to drop quite significantly for water to drain away naturally - as would happen on a flood plain.

Like all articifal landscapes they require carefull management and regular maintenance. Particuarly dredging. You are correct in that dredging is not the only solution or indeed a catch-all solution, other measures need to be put in place to stop so much water reaching one place at the same time, there is a useful article about it below.

People have lived on the levels for thousands of years, some of the oldest evidence of people living in England is preserved in the Lake Villages there, surely as a true English patriot you would want to preserve our unique national history?

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Commons-debate-cost-flooding-Somerset-Levels/story-20453023-detail/story.html

[roversdude]

Certainly was not a flood plain where we stopped - a few very well established houses surrounded by land that has been farmed for hundreds of years

[IC1967]

Where did I say that the Somerset Levels are a flood plain? I never said that. You need to read what I say more closely. it's not he first time you have gone off at a tangent. Here's what I actually said, 'If you live in a flood plain you should expect to get flooded'.

I defy you to pick holes in that statement.

I also said, 'These Southern softies need to harden up'. It is well known in the North that Southerners are softies.

I also defy you to pick holes in that statement.

[jucyberry]

I wouldn't say there is anything soft about being distraught at the ruination of your home/ business/job because of the floodwater.. it's shit what ever part of the country you live in.

[IC1967]

All I'm saying is that compared to Northerners, Southerners are softies. This is not an opinion, it is fact.

I have great sympathy for people that have been flooded who don't live next to a river or in a flood plain. Those that do live in a flood plain or next to a river I have sympathy for but less so. I just don't understand why anyone would want to live with a realistic risk of regular flooding. If that is the choice they make then I'm afraid they have to take the consequences.