The Flood
I'd been wondering, what with the decline of LJ and my recent silence, when best to make my next post, and what about. It's not that my life's been uneventful. So why not take last night's flood of a lifetime. Tweeps know about it in bits and pieces, when I've had time to leave a quick message, but maybe it's a good idea to give you the full picture.
It's been raining for about ten days, with one sunny day to tease us and show us what the weather ought to be like this time of year. My house is close to a river, at a T-junction. If you turn the T so the long arm points right, my house is just about at the beginning of the top branch, and the river at the very bottom of the lower branch (best make a diagram). There's been terrible flooding in the area before, most notably in 1994, a time when I didn't live here. When my house was built three years ago, the construction manager reassured all of us (there are seven flats in my building) that in case of a flood we'd be safe. Cue each of us: "Fine, but that won't happen while we live here."
I sat myself down last night at around 7 to get some writing done, but I was distracted by the people living in the house behind ours started pumping water out of their cellar and into the gutter. So I decided to go and check on the gutters in the underground car park and the basement room where our washing machines are. Both were fine. I went outside to check on the river. It was higher than normal and an ugly brown mass. I met neighbours and we frowned upon the river, but that was it.
An hour later, restlessness drove me out again, and lo, the river had reached to about ten inches beneath the bridge. That's when the fire brigade patrolled the streets and told everyone to get their cars out of underground parking and get valuables out of the basement. I did both, thinking how relatively few things are really worth saving from the cellar.
The topic of sand bags came up and how to make sure water didn't get into our undercroft (I'll use the term to refer to the underground parking lot). If it did happen, it wouldn't be too bad, up to about 15 inches or so, because the basement is elevated by about 16 inches above the undercroft. The basement is where the washing machines are, and the "engine room" (water supply, electricity, heating, elevator). If the basement runs full of water, we'd be fucked. My flat, btw., is on the first floor, so I'll be safe even if the ground floor were to be flooded, which is highly unlikely.
We secured the driveway to the undercroft with sand bags that were kindly delivered by the fire brigade and the community, and someone procured powerful pumps and hoses. Then we waited, getting five different answers and prognoses from three people we asked.
The water started to rise above the bridge, washing over the edge and luckily away from our branch of the T. Which meant that the street leading to the town centre was flooded at the peak to about thigh-high. The school on the edge of the river there was completely flooded, as were the homes on either side of the street.
Our neighbours at the heart of the T got ready for the water very later, for whatever reasons, although their house is about three metres away from the edge of the water. The water consequently flooded their basement and the lower part of their backyard, so the fire brigade arrived and installed two powerful pumps.
That was when things got hectic at ours. The water from their garden found its way down our driveway. We installed the pumps and constructed a barrier of sand bags to guide the water away from the gutter at the edge of the rolltop gate of the undercroft. I discovered that the gutter in the washing room burped up water, so we opened that guter and got water out by the bucketful until the pump in there had a chance to cope with the volume of water getting in there from the driveway gutter (stupid, stupid idea, by the way, to guide water from outside inside the house).
Outside, the water on the street level got very close to our barrier of sand bags, but never quite reached it, despite the two pumps in the neighbour's yard.
We had news of a dam having broken in the commercial area, which took pressure off our river and the water started to recede. The worst was over. That was at around 6.30 am, when I decided to have breakfast. School was cancelled but I went in anyway, because I thought that quite a few colleagues from out of town would find it either difficult or impossible to come to school this morning.
I'd had news during the night of the school being flooded too, but luckily that were just the lower, outside levels, and the fire brigade pumped water there too, so that the building itself is dry and safe. I'd had nightmare visions of our costumes and props going bye-bye; the work of months, for TEH Musical gone in one night. But luckily, everything was all right when I checked on it. We were supposed to dye the costumes as I'm writing this, but that was concelled, of course.
My colleagues cheered me up a bit and fed me cake before sending me home to catch some sleep. When I collapsed into bed I'd been awake for 24 hours.
It's raining again, and I'm not sure whether to expect a second flood tomorrow, coming from the Alps, where the rain is even more severe. Reports are confusing.
The bottom line is that last night's flood was worse than the infamous 1994 one and that we were extremely lucky (touches wood). All our neighbours' basements were flooded. Where ever you go you can see hoses coming out of basement windows, spewing water into the street.
I'm cold, tired, but I've had a shower, some food and sleep. I might nap again later on, to be ready for the next round that hopefully will never come.
Thank you, tweeps on my flist, for sending good vibes.
It's been raining for about ten days, with one sunny day to tease us and show us what the weather ought to be like this time of year. My house is close to a river, at a T-junction. If you turn the T so the long arm points right, my house is just about at the beginning of the top branch, and the river at the very bottom of the lower branch (best make a diagram). There's been terrible flooding in the area before, most notably in 1994, a time when I didn't live here. When my house was built three years ago, the construction manager reassured all of us (there are seven flats in my building) that in case of a flood we'd be safe. Cue each of us: "Fine, but that won't happen while we live here."
I sat myself down last night at around 7 to get some writing done, but I was distracted by the people living in the house behind ours started pumping water out of their cellar and into the gutter. So I decided to go and check on the gutters in the underground car park and the basement room where our washing machines are. Both were fine. I went outside to check on the river. It was higher than normal and an ugly brown mass. I met neighbours and we frowned upon the river, but that was it.
An hour later, restlessness drove me out again, and lo, the river had reached to about ten inches beneath the bridge. That's when the fire brigade patrolled the streets and told everyone to get their cars out of underground parking and get valuables out of the basement. I did both, thinking how relatively few things are really worth saving from the cellar.
The topic of sand bags came up and how to make sure water didn't get into our undercroft (I'll use the term to refer to the underground parking lot). If it did happen, it wouldn't be too bad, up to about 15 inches or so, because the basement is elevated by about 16 inches above the undercroft. The basement is where the washing machines are, and the "engine room" (water supply, electricity, heating, elevator). If the basement runs full of water, we'd be fucked. My flat, btw., is on the first floor, so I'll be safe even if the ground floor were to be flooded, which is highly unlikely.
We secured the driveway to the undercroft with sand bags that were kindly delivered by the fire brigade and the community, and someone procured powerful pumps and hoses. Then we waited, getting five different answers and prognoses from three people we asked.
The water started to rise above the bridge, washing over the edge and luckily away from our branch of the T. Which meant that the street leading to the town centre was flooded at the peak to about thigh-high. The school on the edge of the river there was completely flooded, as were the homes on either side of the street.
Our neighbours at the heart of the T got ready for the water very later, for whatever reasons, although their house is about three metres away from the edge of the water. The water consequently flooded their basement and the lower part of their backyard, so the fire brigade arrived and installed two powerful pumps.
That was when things got hectic at ours. The water from their garden found its way down our driveway. We installed the pumps and constructed a barrier of sand bags to guide the water away from the gutter at the edge of the rolltop gate of the undercroft. I discovered that the gutter in the washing room burped up water, so we opened that guter and got water out by the bucketful until the pump in there had a chance to cope with the volume of water getting in there from the driveway gutter (stupid, stupid idea, by the way, to guide water from outside inside the house).
Outside, the water on the street level got very close to our barrier of sand bags, but never quite reached it, despite the two pumps in the neighbour's yard.
We had news of a dam having broken in the commercial area, which took pressure off our river and the water started to recede. The worst was over. That was at around 6.30 am, when I decided to have breakfast. School was cancelled but I went in anyway, because I thought that quite a few colleagues from out of town would find it either difficult or impossible to come to school this morning.
I'd had news during the night of the school being flooded too, but luckily that were just the lower, outside levels, and the fire brigade pumped water there too, so that the building itself is dry and safe. I'd had nightmare visions of our costumes and props going bye-bye; the work of months, for TEH Musical gone in one night. But luckily, everything was all right when I checked on it. We were supposed to dye the costumes as I'm writing this, but that was concelled, of course.
My colleagues cheered me up a bit and fed me cake before sending me home to catch some sleep. When I collapsed into bed I'd been awake for 24 hours.
It's raining again, and I'm not sure whether to expect a second flood tomorrow, coming from the Alps, where the rain is even more severe. Reports are confusing.
The bottom line is that last night's flood was worse than the infamous 1994 one and that we were extremely lucky (touches wood). All our neighbours' basements were flooded. Where ever you go you can see hoses coming out of basement windows, spewing water into the street.
I'm cold, tired, but I've had a shower, some food and sleep. I might nap again later on, to be ready for the next round that hopefully will never come.
Thank you, tweeps on my flist, for sending good vibes.