Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Flooding in the UK

Perhaps I haven't been following the news as assiduously the past few days as I normally do. Perhaps it is because it was a weekend, and the "news" channels here put on dross rather than news (mainly shock value shows to scare you witless about your children's future). But perhaps, just perhaps, the news shows haven't given the floods in the UK the attention that they might deserve. I didn't hear anything about it on the news until this morning on NPR. My thanks to RT over at Cornish Dreamer for blogging about it yesterday: it is how I came to hear about it.

LOML's parents live on high ground with no rivers nearby, and in an area which has not had the massive rains, so we are not worried about them. My parents live about half a mile or so from the Thames, opposite a small, man-made lake, so I had more concern about them.

I finally spoke to my parents yesterday afternoon, evening their time. Apparently they are expecting flooding today or tomorrow (although yesterday's rain was much less than expected, and today is supposed to be nice and sunny) --- they are downriver from Oxford, where things are flooded out.

Apparently there are still people in their village who remember the floods of 194x, when people were using rowing boats down the main roads to get around, and there is some fear that this year's floods will meet that high-water mark. A few years ago the flooding was restricted to property about half a mile from the Thames, and they are on slightly higher ground, so I am hopeful that they will be okay.

My thoughts go out to all those in lower lying places right now....

Yours, with cheer, because even in times of gloom and glummery it is better to work with a smile than slink with a frown,
N.

4 comments:

Cornish Dreamer said...

I am very sorry to hear that your parents are at a potential risk from the floods. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that the rains due tomorrow will be insignificant and not cause the water levels to rise any further.

If it's any comfort, I've been keeping an eye on the metoffice website, and there appears to be no severe weather warnings for at least the next week + the floods were expected to reach a maximum at about 12 last night. I'm hoping we're now over the worst.

RT

BreadBox said...

I think that the risk for them is not high: not that it is minimal either, but of the people in their village, I think that they are better off. Of course, if the power goes out for a week, and the roads are flooded, who knows.... But I'm not expecting that, and neither are they.
Thanks for the thoughts.
N.

Linda said...

I hope all of your family is safe.

I have heard much about the flooding - perhaps because we ourselves have been getting lots of flooding this year. But I know that I read BobKats House blog and she was concerned for her family (and she also lives in the UK).

Flooding is never good for anyone.

BreadBox said...

I think that the reason we haven't seen much about the flooding in the UK is that then we might have to talk about the flooding in Kansas as well,
and in Texas, etc... And there is such important other news around to cover, for example: Lindsey Lohan being arrested on drug possession charges. Seriously: I watched the news for 25 minutes earlier today and that took up about 8 minutes of the coverage.

N.