Floods

[ladyofastolat]

"Worst floods in Britain in modern history", one newspaper said today. Somewhere else said that the rescue operation is the largest peacetime military operation ever. I feel very guilty for feeling jealous of my parents' 130mm of rain on Friday. Looking at the post-apocalyptic scenes on television is very powerful, especially since my parents are caught up in it (though not as badly as many*), and it's my childhood haunts that are ruined under the brown water.

I have a weakness for post-apocalyptic stories, even though they always give me bad dreams. There's something terrifying and thrilling about how fragile our grip on civilisation is. Take out one pumping station, and 350,000 people are without fresh water. Take out one power station, and a county is without electricity. Blockade a few refineries, as happened a few years ago, and the entire country comes to a halt, no-one able to go anywhere. There are so many things that make our lives more comfortable than the lives of our forefathers, but they are so utterly dependent on other people. We don't grow our own food or get our own water from a well or travel only the places we can reach on our own feet. It is so terrifyingly easy to take down our whole infrastructure, and we're lost, totally unable to look after ourselves.

However, I find the human nature side of it strangely comforting. Post-apocalyptic stories often show law and order totally breaking down, and people reverting to savagery and violence. I prefer to think that decency would survive. Yes, there has been some looting, and there have been some horrid attempts to make profit out of people's desperation for water, but there have also been so many cases of people going out of their way for others. My Mum knows lots of people who put refugees up on Friday night, or who were out in the torrential rain shovelling piles of silt and mud from the doors of even older people. There have been images of people risking their lives to get others out of trapped cars or houses. Some people are trying to steal water, but most people are orderly queuing. There are lots of nasty people around, and they hit the headlines, but I think most people are okay, and that order and decency prevails even in the worst situations. Awful things happen, but life returns to normal afterwards.

* My Mum phoned as I was writing, and they've been told that it might be four weeks before they have fresh water. Eeek! It's their Ruby Wedding in two weeks, and we're visiting them for a nice dinner and celebration. Maybe we should just invite them here instead. Apparently Winchcombe was filmed for the main BBC news today, so I'm off to watch.

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

The 2007 floods are bad (I'm assuming that the newspaper in question is referring to all of the flooding and not just this week's that affected nice southern people and not those nasty northern types) and very widespread. I would hate to be without water for four weeks!

But worst in modern British history?

Bollocks.

Four inches of rain fell in one afternoon on Friday in some parts of the country. So far, I think eight (?) people have died in the two separate instances.

In May 1912, FIVE inches fell near Louth in Lincolnshire, the village was pretty much destroyed and 22 people died.

Three months later that year, Brundall in Norfolk experienced EIGHT inches in one day. Six months later much of Norfolk was still underwater. SIX MONTHS!

And in August of that year, NINE inches fell on Exmoor and the Devon town of Lynmouth was devastated. More than 30 people were killed.


Then there were the 1947 floods. Apparently in total, something like 45,000 properties have been affected this year. In 1947, 100,000 properties were flooded, and much more farmland was submerged.

So I reckon the rankings for worst modern British floods are:

1st 1912
2nd 1947
3rd 2007

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

We saw Winchcombe on the news, and thought of you and your parents. I hope they are doing okay.

*hugs*

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I also feel the magic of the floods. Think it may be too much Gormenghast at an early age.

Not sure about the post-apocalyptic stories. Possibly I've read too many of them, but at the moment I would say that we are in stage 1) catastrophe: authorities battling against the problem, neighbourliness, appeals for calm - ie, too early for full breakdown.

I don't think you get breakdown of law and order until about stage 3) catastrophe (government in collapse, hunger, roving bands). This is usually the point at which Our Hero gives up on his own smallscale rescue attempts and decides to leave the city for the countryside.