What's more current than the weather?

[DanaC]

So many people have lost so much. A lot of the properties were already uninsurable because of previous flood damage and now they're hit again. The new flood defences have failed. Even those with insurance face major losses. The businesses and shops in the town centres along the calder have been badly hit. Some will not come back from this.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...ugh-this-again

At 3pm on Saturday, the Calder was at 5.65m, the highest level recorded and more than 3.5m above its usual peak. In the Dusty Miller Inn, landlord Christian Pollitt and his family watched with horror from their first-floor flat. Up, up and up the river rose, until it was too late to escape.

The floodwater rushed into the pub until it was well over 6ft deep, almost as high as the fire exit signs. In a matter of minutes, a £50,000 kitchen was a floating junkyard, £20,000 of festive food contaminated with sewage-laden flood water. Pollitt, trapped upstairs with three children, eight other adults and a dog, rang for help. An hour and a half later, they were rescued.

“We were stranded. We had to climb out on to the roof and were picked up by lifeboat,” said Pollitt, still in a daze on Sunday as he surveyed the wreckage of the Dusty Miller and his other pub, a micro brewery called the Libertine, which opened only two weeks ago and now resembles a windowless, muddy squat.

That's some shitty bad fortune right there.

2000+ homes and 200 businesses in the Calder Valley have been badly affected.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by DanaC

...A lot of the properties were already uninsurable because of previous flood damage...

...family watched with horror from their first-floor flat...until it was too late to escape...



That's some shitty bad fortune right there.

I feel for these folks, but, that's not bad fortune, that's bad decision making.

[DanaC]

In reference to the previous flooding - there wasn't really much the residents could do about that. Do you think flood hit and therefore uninsurable properties sell well ? Those people are,forthe most part, pretty much stuck with what they have. Housing is very expensive in this country. We have a housing crisis at the moment. Both in terms of rocketing numbers of homeless families at the bottom end of the scale in the rented sector, and people unable to get on to the ladder for buying. The value of the houses and business premises in the flood hit towns in 2012 plummeted.

In terms of the businesses in the town centres - it would pretty much sound the death knell of every town in the Calder Valley if all the independent businesses upped sticks and left because of floods. Not to mention these are communities - people living and working, often in the same towns they were born in. Something like half the town centre was under water in Hebden and in Tod.

What needs to happen is some kind of state insurance fund for major flooding.It is not acceptable that large chunks of these towns are going to end up nonviable for business because the insurance companies had to pay out on flood insurance a couple of times in a decade.

Likewise,it would be reallyfucking great if central government would refrain from cutting the budgets for flood defence strategies in the north. That'd be champion.


As to the family who watched til it was too late to escape - in that particular case the waters rose in minutes. It was very fast.

[tw]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Likewise,it would be reallyfucking great if central government would refrain from cutting the budgets for flood defence strategies in the north.

Is structure construction required to also install flood retention basins?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by tw

Is structure construction required to also install flood retention basins?

I don't know exactly what is required. As I understand it, what is needed at the moment isa more joined up approach. Much of the flood defense strategies have been very localised, when what is needed is a more regional response.

There is some construction involved, I believe, but not sure what that is.

In the wake ofthe last really bad floods a few years ago, there was a move to get something better in place - some of that work was done, but some of it was still being worked out - a potential plan of action was drawn up and costed, but central government reduced the budget fairly recently, despite warnings from the floods agency that the number of properties affected by flooding was likely to rise drastically compared to previous years.

My friends' house in Tod had a couple of feet of water in their cellar and further down the street a houses had water up into the ground floor - that's the first time, apparently, in 20 years that the street has flooded.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's the problem when they terminate(cut funding) of a project before it's finished, either what has been completed makes things worse or collapses without the reinforcement of the rest.

[tw]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I don't know exactly what is required. As I understand it, what is needed at the moment isa more joined up approach. Much of the flood defense strategies have been very localised, when what is needed is a more regional response.

Mistake is to build more leeves. For example, to protect a flood plain of east St Louis, they kept upgrading that leeve. It is now 50 feet (15 meters) high. That was not a solution. River between St Louis and Illinois is only a mile wide. So it backs up. Under Clinton (when FEMA was managed by professionals), towns such as Gafton Il were moved to higher ground. To create more flood plains. If a town floods, either levees downstream must be removed. Or that land must become a floodplain.

Best on floodplains are stadiums, parking lots, parks, swamps, and forests, and corn fields. Flooded homes means nobody should have been living there.

Of course, once Brownie took over FEMA (remember New Orleans and Katrina), then cost controls replaced productive actions.

Same is what responsible reporters would be asking in the Midlands. Upstream construction without retention basins means larger flood plains must be constructed downstream - not more leeves. But that means making decisions based upon the product - not in short term finance thinking as taught in business schools.

Question to be asked in the Midlands. Was that flooding due to business school graduates and a love of higher leeves? Or was it an exception; something that will not happen again in 100 years? Remember, new construction upstream means more water requiring larger flood plains downstream. Are retention basins routinely installed on up to 10% of each lot used in new construction? If not, then that is the serious problem - not the resulting flooding.

[glatt]

I just saw the latest update on the weather forecast. The models are calling for up to three feet of snow here starting on Friday. We didn't have enough food for that. You need a week's worth of food if that happens here. So we just got back from a late night trip to the store. It was crowded but not as crowded as it will be tomorrow night.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm disappointed, when I bought my current snowblower with a three warranty, we didn't get enough snow to bother for three years. I just paid almost half as much to have it completely refurbished and really hoped to get at least one easy winter. But the forecast says 8 to 12 Friday and 11 to 17 Saturday, with light snow Sunday. Crap.

[Griff]

We are willing to take your snow, make an offer. Seriously we are sitting between the lake effect running North and the coastal running SE.

[Undertoad]

Notify next of kin.

Stock the booze cabinets.

Place all Amazon Prime orders of flashlights, batteries, and tuna fish cans by tomorrow, to ensure delivery.

[fargon]

And once again all we get is cold, you guyz on the east coast get all of our snow.

[Undertoad]

They go back and forth: some of this morning's models have us only getting a foot of snow. One of them says only 9 inches!

[glatt]

Our snow removal here isn't all that great. These big storms are so rare that it's economically foolish to buy and maintain all that equipment to prepare for them. This is both on the government level and also on the homeowner level. I don't own a snow blower. If it snowed every year, then I would splurge for one. The county has snow plows, but not enough for a 3 foot storm. There are 1,000 miles of roads to plow in this little county. Where do you even put 3 feet of snow you remove from the roads? The answer for some of it is you haul it to school parking lots and pile it up where you melt it in a snow melter.

If we get three feet of snow, the main roads will be cleared but the residential streets will be impassible for about a week. We have a grocery store a block away, which is fantastic, but it's a smaller store that very few people normally use for much more than running to get a gallon of milk. It isn't large enough to serve as the main store for all the houses in walking distance. Its shelves will be bare except for that one lonely dust covered jar of gefilte fish. The resupply trucks will have trouble restocking the store.

All this is to say that snow is fun, but 3 feet is worrysome.

Growing up in Maine, 3 feet was awesome! You had a one day snow day and then the roads were clear and you had all these huge snow piles to burrow in and make forts.

Cross your fingers for 15 inches.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'd be happy with 8 inches.... oh, you mean snow.
glatt, for years and years I used a cheap little 20" wide 2-cycle blower, I could pick up with one hand. I cleared a lot of 2 ft storms with that thing. It does an awesome job, just takes a little longer, but sure beats shoveling. The only thing it wouldn't do is by my mailbox.
The county has a set plow pattern they've used the 35 years I've been here. First the plow goes down the middle of the road rolling it toward my mail box. On the way back they push the far side back which is only a few feet, then the third pass the push every thing else toward my mailbox leaving a wall 3 to 5 ft high. It's a ways wet and packed so it freezes solid.