Flooded river

[wongkk]

Well, it happens each year:  the flood plain is flooded! These pictures are taken in the morning on my cycle ride to work.  I was a bit later this morning and caught the sunrise.  As the sky was reasonably clear, even the pre-sunrise dawn showed the extent of the water, which is pretty much an inland sea at present.

Comments

[wongkk]

I'm afraid the floods have been fairly serious: two major roads into the city closed, two people drowned and some homes/businesses flooded. It is a quiet menace until your storms and tornadoes but bad enough if you are affected. I'm lucky enough to be on the other side of the city which is on higher ground.

The road is a new (well, new for Oxford - 1970s instead of 1370s!) artificial causeway built over the flood plain which is sluiced to allow water to be run from the river (when it is getting dangerously high) onto the meadows. The meadows are not used in the winter as the cattle are moved off the open land into shelter. In any case, the grass does not grow until the daylight length increases so there is little grazing for them. In short, this area is a safety valve to keep the excess water out of the city (in normal conditions).

It is worse when we have flooding in the summer (as we did in July 2012) as the land is in full use then and the city is densely occupied with tourists and holiday traffic. More misery for everybody.

[brotherskeeper1]

I am sad to hear of the lives lost and homes flooded. Roads closed and even businesses flooded. I hope the water does not rise.

You speak of tornadoes; that can happen any time, but usually in spring is the worst time and the most storms. I pray that we do not have a bad tornado season! April May and June are the worst.

Can you sill bike to work on that path?

[wongkk]

The water level has fallen a little since last week (when I took the photos) but it all depends on the rain; if we have more rain, the flooding will stay about the same.

Yes, the path is still dry, thank you, so it takes me to work every day :=)

[brotherskeeper1]

Please be careful in riding so close to that high water. Water in flooded fields like these scares me.

I am thinking of fields near me which look like these. The highway is banked up so high and has no place to pull off the road if one has car trouble. Several people have driven off the road and drowned. Their car sank and was not found until the water level dropped weeks later. I no longer drive that highway. To get to where I used to go, I had to drive about a 10 minute stretch. It scared me very much. The flooding extended so far back that I could not see where it ended. It was like an ocean and very deep.

Water has always been my greatest fear. I almost drowned twice. Once as a child in a swimming pool which no one was watching, and another time as a teen. The second time I was rescued. One other time, I was taken to the ocean late evening with family. Everyone was drinking and I was being pulled out into the ocean. No one heard me yelling. It was only by God's grace that I got out of that situation.