The White Stuff has Arrived...

[addjunkie]

Bingo! Two roads closed.

First one by a small stream running clean over the road about 3ft deep at a speed more than fast enough to sweep a vehicle away,

Second is approx 2ft deep based on the number of gate bars covered in the field entrance, and covered for at least half a mile by the river coming in over the neighbouring fields, would be passable in the truck without undue hassle but deep enough that there's no point chancing it for the sheer hell of it.

A third road has a dip with getting on for a foot of water in it that's proving passable to most cars with careful fording, but did claim a BMW 3 Series behind me which drove into it way too fast, and then conked out in a cloud of steam about 50m down the road...

Maybe being a bit off the wall, old hat idea…but wouldn't dredging the rivers and digging out drains, ditches etc be a bit better than all this flooding, giving the water a route away.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Maybe being a bit off the wall, old hat idea…but wouldn't dredging the rivers and digging out drains, ditches etc be a bit better than all this flooding, giving the water a route away.

Short answer...

Sometimes, but only when very carefully considered, as these kinds of works can just as often causes even more catastrophic flooding lower down in the catchment.

It's not a new thing either...

I grew up near Vermuyden's Dutch River, a 69 mile long artificial river dug at his own cost in 1633, after a lawsuit against him for the tort of negligence brought by three towns which were being continuously flooded by his drainage scheme for Hatfield Chase.

Specifically when he straightened the Don east of Doncaster and diverted it into the Tidal Aire at Pollington to move water away from the Humberhead levels, it resulted in the Aire bursting it's banks so badly that it caused flooding up to 7 miles away.


Going back to by my village...

The river in question has a fairly substantial flood prevention system with a significant canalised section and three massive sluice gates that the EA adjusts to deliberately flood "washlands" to protect various villages and two massive national grid substations downstream.

Unfortunately when the scheme was designed in the 90's we didn't get as intense rain events as we do now and it backs up further, so that road is collateral damage to avoid either cutting off power to either Sheffield and/or reducing the grid capacity for England west of Leeds and North of the Humber by ⅓... Which seems fair enough.


The little stream is formed by a steep sided natural valley which will happily take way more water than it's seen today...

The problem is that the road runs over a culvert made from two 18" concrete pipes that were never even close to being suitable for the peak flow of water in its catchment, but the county council don't see proactively improving the culvert or replacing with a small bridge as cost effective compared to just letting it flood until it finally washes away one day.

The valley it's in would probably be a great candidate for a natural flood attenuation scheme or even beavers to slow the flow... But for the fact it receives the overflow from a small private reservoir that would be at risk of causing catastrophic flooding if it ever overtopped.


I don't envy hydrologists trying to find ways to prevent flooding, I feel like the Victorians got most of the low hanging fruit of good ideas for diverting watercourses and what's left is the awkward intractable stuff.

 

[premmington]

Short answer...

Sometimes, but only when very carefully considered, as these kinds of works can just as often causes even more catastrophic flooding lower down in the catchment.

It's not a new thing either...

I grew up near Vermuyden's Dutch River, a 69 mile long artificial river dug at his own cost in 1633, after a lawsuit against him for the tort of negligence brought by three towns which were being continuously flooded by his drainage scheme for Hatfield Chase.

Specifically when he straightened the Don east of Doncaster and diverted it into the Tidal Aire at Pollington to move water away from the Humberhead levels, it resulted in the Aire bursting it's banks so badly that it caused flooding up to 7 miles away.


Going back to by my village...

The river in question has a fairly substantial flood prevention system with a significant canalised section and three massive sluice gates that the EA adjusts to deliberately flood "washlands" to protect various villages and two massive national grid substations downstream.

Unfortunately when the scheme was designed in the 90's we didn't get as intense rain events as we do now and it backs up further, so that road is collateral damage to avoid either cutting off power to either Sheffield and/or reducing the grid capacity for England west of Leeds and North of the Humber by ⅓... Which seems fair enough.


The little stream is formed by a steep sided natural valley which will happily take way more water than it's seen today...

The problem is that the road runs over a culvert made from two 18" concrete pipes that were never even close to being suitable for the peak flow of water in its catchment, but the county council don't see proactively improving the culvert or replacing with a small bridge as cost effective compared to just letting it flood until it finally washes away one day.

The valley it's in would probably be a great candidate for a natural flood attenuation scheme or even beavers to slow the flow... But for the fact it receives the overflow from a small private reservoir that would be at risk of causing catastrophic flooding if it ever overtopped.


I don't envy hydrologists trying to find ways to prevent flooding, I feel like the Victorians got most of the low hanging fruit of good ideas for diverting watercourses and what's left is the awkward intractable stuff.

"I don't envy hydrologists trying to find ways to prevent flooding, I feel like the Victorians got most of the low hanging fruit of good ideas for diverting watercourses and what's left is the awkward intractable stuff."

Never thought about it like that - but you may well have a good point there

 

[JOEPRO]

The problem is that the road runs over a culvert made from two 18" concrete pipes that were never even close to being suitable for the peak flow of water in its catchment, but the county council don't see proactively improving the culvert or replacing with a small bridge as cost effective compared to just letting it flood until it finally washes away one day.

There is no simple answer for that one. I'll give an example.

It's only really in the last decade or so that planning services in Northern Ireland have ensured that applicants provide flood risk assessments prepared by specialist consultants and review these among alot of other information before granting permission with conditions.

I'll give one example similar to what you are saying above. It was a site bought for 150+ house development during the late 2000's economic boom. It sold for many millions and was zoned for development.

However, when detailed food risk assessments were carried out it was determined that the site would flood. And that it was also unsuitable for the normal attenuation measures. (Aka, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems)

The issue was a limited size culvert running below a public road. There was nothing the developer could do about this as it was determined any upgrade to the culvert diameter below the road would send more water downstream and flood houses several miles downstream.

I have maybe oversimplified the summary there but that's what it came down to. These flood assessments can reach for hundreds of miles. That ultimately there was no way to gravity store and release the water later by way of restrictor plates etc and therefore the increased hardstanding would divert more water than the bridge could handle - which was already at its max in terms of river flow downstream. The developer lost millions on that site purchase cost and it is still sitting there undeveloped as its impossible to overcome the issue.

The issue is increasingly becoming harder to resolve on sites. And it's been made ALOT more difficult in the last year or so. What is happening now is that say I get a site passed within a town for 8 houses and I want to connect to the foul drainage. The water company can now insist that you make "consequential improvements" to the local drainage infrastructure. For example by making it a pre development condition that you upgrade attenuation or carry out other drainage improvements to other existing THIRD party sites! Imagine the cluster that is going to be. I already know of where this has failed whereby developers went in to other older sites based on the water company upgrade plan and records and found them to be wholly inaccurate and the condition could not be discharged. Back to square 1 and thousands of fees lost.

 

[JOEPRO]

My rear wheel drive Mercedes w205 over a snowy mountain after work this evening. What could possibly go wrong?

A Kia that's what. I was moving well following my self taught rules in snow with rear wheel drive. Leave the traction control on - it will help when understood and used correctly. Keep momentum. Very gentle throttle and brake inputs.

Got up the steepest hill fine. Spinning but good progress. Passed several stranded lorries. One of the last hills, turned uphill corner and there was a plonker in a new Kia Jeep sitting there with their hazards on. Had to stop. Any time I built up and tried to pass them an oncoming headlight set would stop me in my tracks.

I had to retreat in reverse and do a u turn in the dark with oncoming traffic due to this buffoon. I took the much longer and flatter road home but know I could have made it just fine if not for the Kia jeep type sitting on a hill doing nothing useful to get moving again. I was able to get my rear wheel driving going a couple of times behind them and they sat there still, probably panicking

 

[roofman]

Very important that we don't forget the aged in our community when the weather gets bad...called at 4 houses today in my road and asked if they need any vitals (bread,milk,etc) picking up as i could see they had not been out by no foot prints in the snow on there driveways and door steps. Being the old school they had bought twice before the snow came, you cant teach an old dog new tricks as they have been through this many times in there lives.

 

[Morrisman]

We had a brief flurry of snow around 6 tonight, it didn’t last and melted pretty quick, but then the temp dropped markably and within an hour everything had a layer of ice on, road, pavement, driveway, car. I took my dog out briefly but it was treacherous underfoot so we soon turned round.
Daughter’s fella has to be at work by 6am, a 3 mile drive. I don’t envy him, I’ve seen no gritters around today.

 

[Erie Fred]

We had a brief flurry of snow around 6 tonight, it didn’t last and melted pretty quick, but then the temp dropped markably and within an hour everything had a layer of ice on, road, pavement, driveway, car. I took my dog out briefly but it was treacherous underfoot so we soon turned round.
Daughter’s fella has to be at work by 6am, a 3 mile drive. I don’t envy him, I’ve seen no gritters around today.

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