Floods again!

[peterboat]

Last night was another near flood, the water just topped the moorings in places, why can't people look at the weather and come and make their boats safe? Why do they insist on tieing them down by the handrails to the bank? Anyway it all went ok minor road flooding and the railway out of action proving that the very expensive flood protection doesn't work! Dredge the bloody rivers! A thanks to the CRT lockeepers who let water out of our length of canal and saved boats sinking and being stuck on the bank 

Edited February 21, 2022 by peterboat

[Jen-in-Wellies]

I've not been down there for ages, but I don't think the flood alleviation works are finished that are supposed to stop the railway from flooding.

Just had this arrive by email, so it looks like the contractors building the flood barrier on the canal were caught out too. How's it looking around Forge Island?

Quote

Notice Alert

Sheffield & South Yorkshire Nav
Location: Near Rotherham Lock, Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation
Starts At: Rotherham Lock Footbridge
Ends At: Main Street Bridge
Up Stream Winding Hole: Tinsley No 12 Lock, Sheffield & Tinsley Canal
Down Stream Winding Hole: Just before Rotherham Lock foot bridge

Tuesday 4 January 2022 08:00 until Friday 1 April 2022 16:00

Type: Navigation Closure
Reason: Repair

---

 

Update on 21/02/2022:

 

This Stoppage has been extended.  Unfortunately we have had to extend this Stoppage due to delays caused by recent storms in the area, the Stoppage will now end 01/04/2022.  The team onsite will be working extended hours and weekends to ensure these works are safely completed as soon as is practical.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

 

Original message:

 

A stoppage is required for works on the flood alleviation canal barrier- Rotherham flood alleviation scheme phase 2C

 

[David Mack]

31 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Just had this arrive by email, so it looks like the contractors building the flood barrier on the canal were caught out too.

Looks like contractors building flood defences on the River Aire at Kirkstall, upstream from Leeds, got caught out too.

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/gallery/jcb-digger-floats-down-leeds-23161748

 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by David Mack

[peterboat]

32 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I've not been down there for ages, but I don't think the flood alleviation works are finished that are supposed to stop the railway from flooding.

Just had this arrive by email, so it looks like the contractors building the flood barrier on the canal were caught out too. How's it looking around Forge Island?

 

Jen it wont work, I should have taken a picture of the fountain coming up the big drain next to the lines! From what I can gather the piling across the canal gave way so that caused damage to works carried out.

The real problem is though if all that water can't go onto the railway lines where will it go? Answer the town of course so why don't they just dredge the rivers and restore depth to them?

[Mike Todd]

2 hours ago, peterboat said:

Jen it wont work, I should have taken a picture of the fountain coming up the big drain next to the lines! From what I can gather the piling across the canal gave way so that caused damage to works carried out.

The real problem is though if all that water can't go onto the railway lines where will it go? Answer the town of course so why don't they just dredge the rivers and restore depth to them?

I thought that when we last had a discussion following flooding and considered the suggestions about dredging, the consensus from experts was that dredging is not quite as simple a solution as it might appear and that unintended consequences are all to often the outcome of insufficiently researched reactions.

[peterboat]

3 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I thought that when we last had a discussion following flooding and considered the suggestions about dredging, the consensus from experts was that dredging is not quite as simple a solution as it might appear and that unintended consequences are all to often the outcome of insufficiently researched reactions.

Really, so a river that is blocked with debris and trees doesn't stop flow? It's the expense that is the problem 

[MtB]

I dunno what you're worrying about. It's fine here.....

 

 

 

[Mike Todd]

16 hours ago, peterboat said:

Really, so a river that is blocked with debris and trees doesn't stop flow? It's the expense that is the problem 

That is a surprisingly trite response:

 

(a) debris and trees are generally not removed by dredging

 

(b) the issue with spot dredging is making sure that it does not just transfer the problem elsewhere. When the last major Somerset Levels flood occurred, media and others called for extensive dredging but I recall that the consensus expert view was that in many cases it would make the situation worse.

 

(c) of course expense is a factor and quite sensibly public authorities bases expenditure decisions, including deriding, on the basis of a cost and benefit calculation. Measures which only reduce the costs of a flood by less than the cost of doing the work are rarely going to be funded - sensible in my view but perhaps you approve of public expenditure being wasted.

 

(d) of course the public purse is always insufficient to fund all of the proposed projects that pass a value test. Can you suggest which taxes should be raised to afford them? I am not against such a course but in the end the public have to be persuaded of the merits.

 

(e) it is extremely unlikely that flood damage will be prevented entirely for the foreseeable future - like COVID, we have to live with it and sensibly mitigate the consequences.

[matty40s]

It seems that even the experts are surprised by the flooding levels. Dave was the EA goto man for information and interviews during flood periods.

 

[matty40s]

One answer perhaps...worth a read.

 

[Bee]

Dredging doesn't work.  Look at Shropshire if you dug out the bottom of the river through Ironbridge the surface of the water would still be exactly where it was (yes it would) You could lower the river but only if you lowered the bottom all the way to the sea and rebuilt every bridge with deeper footings, when you next visited Ironbridge you would find that the natural angle of repose of the unstable banks had re established itself and most of Ironbridge was in the river along with millions of pounds worth of stabilisation work. Spot dredging?  The first flood would dump hundreds of tons of mud exactly where it used to be, If you start digging away at the lowest point in a valley the higher up stuff will slide down to fill the gap and that's where my house is.   

[Graham Davis]

Monbiot currently has a bit of a downer on this area, and many here who know about these things don't hold him in very high regard.

As far as I can see the problem, especially with the Severn at the moment, is that we have had an extended period of rain, prior to last week, and this has left the ground waterlogged. This can be seen on nearly every country lane where there are run-offs from fields, streams running more than normal, and even springs showing that have been dormant for years. All this shows that the water table is higher than normal. (*) Then we got a rain storm on the weekend the like of which I have nver seen before around here; you couldn't even see across the road at the front of our house at one stage and that is less than 20 metres to the hedge opposite. That water had no-where to go other than downhill into the already swollen river. Result the river level rose very quickly.

People locally are complaining that the Clywedog Dam should have stopped this, but they have been running water out of there continuously for the last month, and the level was some 2 metres down, but by Sunday morning the Dam had been overtopped and was most spectacular.  One of the lcal engineers from STW thought it was overtopping by more than 300cm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clywedog_Reservoir

(*) Another example is a friend's bore hole, where the water was actually coming out of the top of the hole, something he had never seen before.

[Guest]

According to tonights local news the Ouse at York peaked at 4.5 metres and is now receding.

 

5 metres was predicted and 'only' 70 homes and business affected.

[peterboat]

1 hour ago, Bee said:

Dredging doesn't work.  Look at Shropshire if you dug out the bottom of the river through Ironbridge the surface of the water would still be exactly where it was (yes it would) You could lower the river but only if you lowered the bottom all the way to the sea and rebuilt every bridge with deeper footings, when you next visited Ironbridge you would find that the natural angle of repose of the unstable banks had re established itself and most of Ironbridge was in the river along with millions of pounds worth of stabilisation work. Spot dredging?  The first flood would dump hundreds of tons of mud exactly where it used to be, If you start digging away at the lowest point in a valley the higher up stuff will slide down to fill the gap and that's where my house is.   

Go to the Rother and Don both are blocked with silt and trees growing in them, they used to dredge and we didn't flood, now we don't and we flood yearly! Ian Tipos used to own a dredging company which he sold when dredging weren't allowed to be put back on the fields, the costs escalated and nobody wanted to pay! Now we build walls which is the same as dredging except unsightly and like here didn't work! What saved us was a volunteer lock keeper draining the canal through the day and night so the canal and didn't overflow and the town was saved. 

[Momac]

The water had reached the top of the ramp and was flooding the yard at Farndon this afternoon. But we have seen worse.

 

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is that the deeper and wider  the waterway, the lower the flow  resistance and the faster water can flow downstream. In simplistic terms, the layer of water in  contact with the bottom and sides of a watercourse is stationary, and considering just  laminar flow  and ignoring turbulence, the further you get from the stationary layer, the faster the flow can become as the notional layers  slide over each other. Thus the flow rate at the surface at the centre  of  a  dredged channel can be greater than that of  a shallower channel of the same width.  Downstream does of course need to be able to accommodate the greater volume of water that the deeper channel can deliver.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Naughty Cal]

13 hours ago, peterboat said:

Go to the Rother and Don both are blocked with silt and trees growing in them, they used to dredge and we didn't flood, now we don't and we flood yearly! Ian Tipos used to own a dredging company which he sold when dredging weren't allowed to be put back on the fields, the costs escalated and nobody wanted to pay! Now we build walls which is the same as dredging except unsightly and like here didn't work! What saved us was a volunteer lock keeper draining the canal through the day and night so the canal and didn't overflow and the town was saved. 

It isn't so simple as just dredging.

 

Flood prevention works upstream of Rotherham are doing great at stopping parts of Sheffield flooding but they are just containing the water and sending it downstream faster.

 

Dredging at Rotherham would not stop the flooding there. When they raise the flood defence level in Rotherham they will just send the flooding problem further downstream to Doncaster and so on.

[peterboat]

8 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

It isn't so simple as just dredging.

 

Flood prevention works upstream of Rotherham are doing great at stopping parts of Sheffield flooding but they are just containing the water and sending it downstream faster.

 

Dredging at Rotherham would not stop the flooding there. When they raise the flood defence level in Rotherham they will just send the flooding problem further downstream to Doncaster and so on.

It all wants dredging! Sheffield came close to flooding even though billions has been wasted spent on flood defenses

[Naughty Cal]

22 minutes ago, peterboat said:

It all wants dredging! Sheffield came close to flooding even though billions has been wasted spent on flood defenses

Close to and flooding are two very different things though.

 

The hundreds, maybe thousands of people who's property was protected from flooding this time round won't agree that the money spent on the defences was wasted.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Naughty Cal

[Mike Todd]

13 hours ago, peterboat said:

Go to the Rother and Don both are blocked with silt and trees growing in them, they used to dredge and we didn't flood, now we don't and we flood yearly! Ian Tipos used to own a dredging company which he sold when dredging weren't allowed to be put back on the fields, the costs escalated and nobody wanted to pay! Now we build walls which is the same as dredging except unsightly and like here didn't work! What saved us was a volunteer lock keeper draining the canal through the day and night so the canal and didn't overflow and the town was saved. 

Hopefully he did so under the supervision of the water management team - otherwise how would he know whether or not his actions would cause even worse problems down stream, depending on how quickly he flushed it away?

[markeymark]

9 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Hopefully he did so under the supervision of the water management team - otherwise how would he know whether or not his actions would cause even worse problems down stream, depending on how quickly he flushed it away?

Little mention on this thread about the causes of flooding, I note. In yesterdays Shropshire Star commentators were saying that since the floods of 2000 nothing has been down in  Shrewsbury about the floodings...no defences at all as witnessed by the photos. Even In Ironbridge the defences were barely adequate and still houses were flooded. In the meantime the govts austerity programme has gone ahead enriching the MPs whilst everyone else suffers. Decades of wasted time despite warnings from scientists about increased storms and rain and in the meantime floodplains built on and developed to enrich house builders. For the victims of flooding higher insurance premiums and lowered house values and a huge cost to the environment as people have to replace their furniture etc with new ones...only making the problem worse and increasing CO2  levels. Its the perfect feedback loop that maintains the GDP at the cost of peoples wellbeing.

[markeymark]

15 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

Monbiot currently has a bit of a downer on this area, and many here who know about these things don't hold him in very high regard.

As far as I can see the problem, especially with the Severn at the moment, is that we have had an extended period of rain, prior to last week, and this has left the ground waterlogged. This can be seen on nearly every country lane where there are run-offs from fields, streams running more than normal, and even springs showing that have been dormant for years. All this shows that the water table is higher than normal. (*) Then we got a rain storm on the weekend the like of which I have nver seen before around here; you couldn't even see across the road at the front of our house at one stage and that is less than 20 metres to the hedge opposite. That water had no-where to go other than downhill into the already swollen river. Result the river level rose very quickly.

People locally are complaining that the Clywedog Dam should have stopped this, but they have been running water out of there continuously for the last month, and the level was some 2 metres down, but by Sunday morning the Dam had been overtopped and was most spectacular.  One of the lcal engineers from STW thought it was overtopping by more than 300cm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clywedog_Reservoir

(*) Another example is a friend's bore hole, where the water was actually coming out of the top of the hole, something he had never seen before.

I am not sure that people who dont like Monbiot are correct. Monbiot is one of the best environmental people in the UK and sees everything in totality...i.e. cause and effect. The floodings  we have had are not necessarily caused just by UK failures in planning and lack of mitigation but by global events linked to climate change and our rapacious attitude to consumption is one of the causes. It is payback time and long overdue. We have had millions of chances to change the system over the last few decades (not just in the UK) but consumer capitalism has trumped any other ideology and for the moment will continue to dominate our actions and so we can expect even more problems in the future. I was campaigning on this in the late 80's and was told I was talking rubbish , that i was probably a communist and should get a job ( I did have a job on energy policy that was stymied by Thatcher). The right-wing media will blab on about the climate whilst advertising useless junk in their papers that only makes the matter worse...and people fall for it. You may not like Monbiot but to be honest, no-one likes to hear things that suggest they change their way of life.

[Alway Swilby]

15 hours ago, The Happy Nomad said:

According to tonights local news the Ouse at York peaked at 4.5 metres and is now receding.

 

5 metres was predicted and 'only' 70 homes and business affected.

Those homes and businesses are regularly flooded and are geared up to deal with it. For example the Kings Arms is quite proud of its flood record. All the furniture is easily moved out of the way along with the stock. The electrics and services are all at high level and when the flood receeds all they need to do is power wash the floors and walls, put the furniture back and away they go. They've done it many times before.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

Those homes and businesses are regularly flooded and are geared up to deal with it. For example the Kings Arms is quite proud of its flood record. All the furniture is easily moved out of the way along with the stock. The electrics and services are all at high level and when the flood receeds all they need to do is power wash the floors and walls, put the furniture back and away they go. They've done it many times before.

 

Indeed.

 

Similar at Rowntree park Caravan club Site which we use. The reception is on a raised level and the EHU points are raised well above the height they normally install them.

[peterboat]

2 hours ago, Naughty Cal said:

Close to and flooding are two very different things though.

 

The hundreds, maybe thousands of people who's property was protected from flooding this time round won't agree that the money spent on the defences was wasted.

You don't know what you are on about  the flood defense in Rotherham are to protect the railway lines hint they didn't work as pictures prove  first train an old one went down the line today. The reason Rotherham didn't flood is because a lock keeper kept on releasing water from the canal bypassing most of the town.