Gas up - Let's Go! Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 I'm not sure what the weather is like in your part of the world, but I think the end of this part of the world is almost here.... so far yesterday ; Keswick was cut off, apart from the Penrith approach. The reality of this is that West Cumbria is only acessable from the south! Sellafield Nuclear site has sent non-escential staff home as a result of torrential rainfall and high winds, We had 15 servere flood warnings in place for north cumbria, 14 Flood Watches, Carlisle public park (a big field thing in the middle of town) was under water, as was the Golf course (no loss there then) an may outlying fields, Keswick was only dry as a result of an old slate wall!!! not so today They evacuated large areas of Keswick and Cockermouth, the authorities adviseing everyone to move their cars and valuables to higher ground! The A6 between Shap and Penrith was closed, as was the A69 (carlisle to newcastle) and the A591 (Keswick to Windermere) and parts of the A66 Seathwait in Borrodale (officially the wettest place in England) has recorded 173mm (6.8 Inches) of rain in 24 hours, that's more than some countries get in 10 years! and to top it all, my front garden is flooded ! that's going to ruin my Daffodils for next year. Today, this have got worse,, Overnight TWO main bridges have been washed away, and one Policement lost to the torrent. The main road link into Workington from the north has gone taking the main gas line with it. The people living just the other side have a 20 - 30 mile detour, heading back into Cockermouth, which itself is under around 2 METERS or water, the town centre is practically wiped out with almost no businesses left. The RAF and RN are busy picking people from upstairs windows and rooftops. Just here'd on the local radio that the ARMY has been called in to assist with the rescue, around 11 people are unaccounted for at the mo. This is all happening 20 minutes away from where I live..... reminds me of the scene outside our front door in 2005: The RN Seaking had just airlifted the family from the white house you can see, it's normally the other side of the river, which was about 1 meter (in hight) from taking our house out - we were lucky. The effects of these last few days is going to last for years. A mate sent me this yesterday, it's from a cameraphone so not great quality, but the waterfall you see is actually a wall that is normally around 20 feet above the river: Really, the place is a mess. In Dumfries & Galloway, half of the remote areas are isolated, another mate of mine took 3 hours to get home, a journey that never takes more than 30 minutes.... Glad of a deisel transit most of his time was spent negotiating flooded cars.
Gas up - Let's Go! Posted November 20, 2009 Author Posted November 20, 2009 I took this off the BBC website, pretty awesum piece of flying, considering it's blowing a hoolie
Ttaskmaster Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 Not good, mate.... We're having our own battle - My company handles the water utilities for much of Southern England. While some places are fine, others are awful and the Regulator keeps cutting our budgets. Ya know... Yamaha do make Jet-Skis....
Gas up - Let's Go! Posted November 20, 2009 Author Posted November 20, 2009 Ya know... Yamaha do make Jet-Skis.... Hey hey... We're OK, had the forsight (after nearly loosing it all in 2005) to move to a place that isn't in the flood plain, although no-one would ever have expected the amount of rain to fall in the fells that did - has to go somewhere, usually down.....
Moderator Airhead Posted November 20, 2009 Moderator Posted November 20, 2009 Glad to hear you got away with it Darren, some spectacular pictures there. It seems almost an annual event these days, doesnt seem long a huge part of the country had this.
Moderator drewpy Posted November 20, 2009 Moderator Posted November 20, 2009 strange weather, we got blue sky's this afternoon and now its dry everywhere!! probably more wet weather on way. just been confirmed the policeman's body has been found, sad day!
Recommended Posts