The End Of The World?

Originally posted by Colin Phillips@Jul 23 2007, 05:36 PM
Warbs, I'm not sure I approve of your flood tourism. :ph34r:
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There's a world of difference Colin between someone stopping a car on the hard shoulder of the M5 to rubberneck Tewksbury, and me taking an amble down St Aldates to try and encourage the river to flood out Christchurch College. :D Unfortunately it's just full of tourists at this time of year, although some of the swans that the students occasionally get drunk and deposit in the grounds are probably familiar with the place.
 
Originally posted by Shadow Leader@Jul 23 2007, 05:34 PM
Have the good residents of Oxford found their two of each kind of animal yet, Warbs?
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:laughing: Oh what a giggle, I tried firing in a quick reply and was prevented from doing so by something called 'flood control' (well I'm glad it's working somewhere). As regards the animals, I daren't think what Oxfordians would elect to shack up with for 40 days and nights. In fact they'd probably spend that long debating it. I think for my part I'm considering which two bottles of different alcoholic drinks to take into my Ark.

"The alcohol went in two by two
hurrah, hurrah"

My understanding is that Botley Road has gone (which takes out all Eastern access to the city). Most of the surrounding fields are under water so we look like an island from the air. We've set up some relief centre in the football stadium which currently has 150 people in it. Otherwise things look worse than they probably are (and I work on the third flor anyway). Sometime around midnight is the high water prediction, though most of the serious trouble looks like being in Abingdon and Witney (see if David Cameron can do a King Cnut in the latters case). Oh I forgot he's in Rwanda today talking about poverty.

It's had the effect of pushing additional traffic onto other roads, and the current advice is not to travel into the City tomorrow. The trains are well down and this has added to the conjestion. However, the biggest problem remains the Oxfordshire motorists inability to drive a few miles without crashing, and it's this that kept me at home all day

A friend of mine has a canoe strapped down to the roof of their garage for such emergencies, and last time I knew it was being readied for battle, :nuts: quite how she thinks she's going to paddle round in pitch darkness or where she's going to go I don't know? but she does cox for some of the College's eights so I assume she's not without some water craftsmanship
 
I'm relieved to hear it :D

Where as I always suspected you possesseth a sadistic streak, I never considered it extended to drowning horses - for a laugh norty
 
Nah, I'm not that bad!

However I was burdening the poor creature with my extra weight along with that of the girl riding him - was providing the entertainment for the rest of the village by hopping onto his back from a wall, clad in full waterproof gear and, erm, high heeled boots....

(don't tell the PC lot, I had no hat on either.....:ph34r: )
 
I'm back up and running (lost my internet for about 3 hours this evening) Just watched ITN news and broadcasting live from Ox expecting the Thames to breach in the next couple of hours. Then they showed pictures from earlier in the day, unfortunately I recognised the background shot of where they were lining the defences up :rolleyes: Well we rent the building off Christchurch College anyway so if I'm swimming in through the front door tomorrow so be it :laughing: I can't believe we're going to get flooded out though :eek: If we are then the city's in serious trouble as we're by no means the lowest lying land around
 
As someone who is familiar with Oxford Dom, the BBC's news page has some aerial video footage which was presumebly shot around this morning (or 24 hours ago if you pick this up on Tuesday). It shows Christchurch Meadow under water although the playing fields and college appear to have been sparred so far. Mind you, this was 24 hours before the high water mark so it might be a bit nip and tuck about now. I'm assuming that's come from the Cherwell though rather than the Thames, but if the latter breaches and reinforces whats there we might be in trouble tomorrow. The Cherwell as I said earlier has a much shallower bed, and narrower channel which is compounded by it being much slower flowing water course so the build up just gets bigger and bigger with no where to go, especially as rain that already fell on top of a high water table is now combining with stuff that's fallen in the wider drainage basin. It would also account for why ITN showed the defences being prepared across St Aldates :laughing: I've just been out for a fag, and although I couldn't see much obviously, I could hear quite a bit of helicopter activity out in the distance. My own best guess is that Oxford will get lucky - it usually does. It must be about the only place that a bomb never fell on in the war - well Cambridge and Heidleberg too - draw your own conclusions about this coincidence :ph34r:
 
There was an interesting little snippet on BBC 24 last night. One weather reprter mentioned that this spell of horrible weather in parts of England (we're having a pretty decent spell up here) might be linked to a mass of colder-than-usual water off Peru.

It might be dragging the jetstream further south than usual which in turn is dragging down the kind of rain that would normally fall in the North Atlantic (further north than Scotland) at this time of year.

Whether it's down to global warming is open to question as it's something that happens once every so many decades anyway.

Don't forget the worldwide weather disasters that were attributed to El Niño about ten years ago.
 
Of course, after various looters, plebs , children and news reporters have waded through all the floating turds and breathed in all the festering bacteria the country will soon be overrun with Zombies, so it wont matter which hill you live on.

In fact , if Al Qaeda decide to blow up the Thames Flood Barrier, that really could be it.

Oh and another thing ... why do so many people keep their precious photo albums on the floor ?
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Jul 22 2007, 10:22 PM
I live at the top of a hill about 600' above sea level.

I'm alright, Jack.
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Just you wait till the millions of gallons of water trapped in the hillsides around Leadhills decides to release itself. You won't be laughing then!
 
We've had the South and West side of the City closed down now for 24 hours. In truth though the reporting of the Oxford situation is more than just a bit OTT. I did nip down to do some flood spotting the other day, and so far as I can see it's the Cherwell that's burst it's banks and not the Thames. The Thames is high but remains a few inches within its channel. The Cherwell's much shallower and slower flowing. In any case, the water meadow at the front of Christchurch college has protected the city and effectively taken the full force of the river. It's moderately surreal as the path above is no more the 6 inches higher than the flooded area, but has effectively protected the entire area behind it. :what:

Basically, there's a gentle hill sloping back up towards the city but because of this it would require an absolutely massive amount of water to cause the river to rise just 3 or 4 foot. In doing so it would widen the river to about half a mile across, which as I said would require an unprecedented amount of water. I guess it's similar to a ria coastline in that regard. In truth we've had floods of equal intensity before in the Winter, but it seems to be the fact that this is a Summer flood that's causing the over reaction.

I've certainly overheard more than just a few tourists on mobile phones ringing confirmation of their safety to their parents in the last few days. There's clearly been some hysterical reporting elsewhere in the world, (probably fuelled by our own)
 
The fields surrounding Botley looked pretty desperate yesterday afternoon & Pangbourne doesn't look to clever either by all accounts.

It's sheeting down again here!
 
I know Botley Road's been closed since Friday but I don't really have any reason to go out there. Port Meadow has been under water for about 8 weeks now, in fact I'm not entirely sure why cartographers don't just draw a lake on the map as I'm sure it spends more time under water than it doesn't. I seem to think there's quite a few streams and drainage channels round Botley? I assume it's these that have over loaded and not been able to shift the water. I noticed the canal had burst it's banks onto the towpath on Wednesday, but so far as the City Centre's concerned things look pretty much as normal. As I said, Christchurch Meadow seems to have acted as one giant sponge and taken the Cherwell. The Angel and Greyhound meadow is under about 4 foot near Magdalen Bridge though. For practical purposes with Botley Road and Abingdon Road closed all the traffic's exiting the city to the North on Woodstock Road, which is pretty well conjested at the best of times. I've given up trying to take the car in now, and am using the train only.

As Dom says though, it's raining heavily again so I expect we're going to be on alert for a few more days yet.

Some guy got electrocuted yesterday incidentally by faulty traffic lights standiing in water.
 
Lambourn was flooded last Friday, and much of the Lambourn Valley. I arrived down here in Eastbury on the Saturday, helped various people in the village with their flooded out houses [yard was not too badly hit, just a couple of inches in 3 rooms inc office and the horse boxes only lapped at by waves at the doors!]. Some in Lambourn inc Weekes the saddlers harder hit, and poor Harry Dunlop had to evacuate his 'new yard' right in the centre of the village [he was suddenly under 4 ft, it's down in a dip trhu an archway... he nearly lost two horses] - the meadow above him [Peter Walwyn's, home to Mandarin in his retirement] was under 4 ft water with the village kids swimming in it! - the allotments were all under water too, and the George pub. The Swan in Gt Shefford at the other end of the valley is wrecked - everything is sitting outside in the car park, inc mountains of sodden carpets. I imagine a lot of cottages in East Garston must have been flooded too.

There is quite a problem on the gallops - Long Hedge and the other gallops on the south side of the village are wrecked, the public a/w gallop above Saxon Gate [Ms Tooth's] along to John Hills's are totally destroyed having been swept down the steep lane beside Stan Moore's/Jacquie Doyle's, and there is probably damage to Stan's private gallops as well tho I haven't spoken to them since the floods to ask. There is also some damage to the main Summerdown gallops above Upper Lambourn. I believe there was some damage too in the recently refurbished Malt Shovel.

The village of Eastbury spent the whole of Sunday digging miles of thick rank waterweeds from the Lam - in late afteroon there were about 200 people working along a mile of river with long hooked rakes, some standing in fast-flowing muddy water up to their chests in borrowed EA waders. The Environment Agency had not only totally failed to maintain the flow of water by neglecting to clear the Lam for over a year - they had actually forbidden anyone to touch it as it's designated a 'winterbourne' which has SSSI status, in spite of many pleas from the parishoners.

The've also allowed the old sluices above Eastbury which diverted water into the meadows either side to fall into the river, whcih led to the flooding in the village. Several friends [members of the yard racing club] have been told they have to move out of their houses, as the floors and underpinnings have all to be taken up. It was all totally unnecessary as with proper maintenence of the river, drains, and sluices this damage would never have happened.

There are now huge mounds of weed piled up all along the banks, some very distraught people - but the EA has committed to repairing or rebuilding the wiers and sluices. The words stable, door, and bolted come to mind :angy: There is no record of the village ever flooding before.
 
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