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Letter Re: Recent Floods in the UK and the Impact on Our Preparations
Further to my
recent post about the recent flooding In the UK, things in the immediate
area are pretty well back to normal now, aside from some continuing disruption
to the road network due to land-slips, undermining and in some cases, bridges
across water courses being washed away.
Here, we got off very lightly, compared to some. No loss of life, no injuries,
very little property damage. There are many families, however, who will be
counting the cost of this incident for a long time, both in terms of loss
of loved ones and of property and livelihood. One’s heart goes out
to them.As to how our preparations ameliorated the effects of the flooding,
I must first of all say we were very lucky to have escaped. The waters found
their way into areas never before affected, with properties and farmland
many feet above the normal floodplain levels being covered. In one case,
a farm tractor in just such a place was up to its cab-roof in floodwater.
However, we moved to this area for work purposes in 1999. Prior to the move
we rented a property in the area to give us a base from which to explore
and familiarise
ourselves with it.
The next task was to obtain 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey maps of the entire region
and work out the pros and cons of each likely area for settlement.
To the east of this region lies the flat, productive lands of the Vale of
Evesham which, as beautiful and fertile as they may be, are crisscrossed
with so many waterways that the map of the area appears to have varicose
veins. To the west the topography changes as it moves into the mountains
of Wales, an area of stunning countryside, so well beloved of tourists in
the summers, but one so bleak in winter that it is used by Special Forces
as a training ground. [JWR Adds: This is the "Brecon
Beacons" area that many SurvivalBlog have read about in books about
the SAS.]
In-between the two the land becomes one of foothills, with small peaks up
to a thousand feet or so.
The area has several cities, many towns and villages, with all the concomitant
amenities and services along with a good transport infrastructure. It ticked
many of the boxes we had earmarked as necessities.
It also has one of the most unstable rivers in Europe running through it;
the River Severn. With its source in the hills of mid-Wales, the Severn is
one of many local rivers that feed from the mountains of Wales and find their
way to the sea further south in England after joining with the Severn.
Coming in from the east is the River Avon, of Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon
fame. Another picturesque watercourse when in good humour, but truly frightening
when in flood. This too joins the Severn as it moves west towards the sea.
Given all this water, the thought of joining the many flood-plain dwellers
(does this name not give them a clue?) along these rivers did not have much
appeal. Also not wanting to live in an urban environment, we ruled out the
cities and larger towns. This led us to ‘head for the hills’ but
given the additional need to be reasonably close to transport links due to
work commitments, a compromise had to be reached.
We finally settled on (in?) the outskirts of a village in the foothills which
had the requisite communication links and was high enough to avoid all but
truly Armageddon-like flooding from the river system.
Being doomers by inclination and country folk by nature, we set about making
the place as self-contained as possible given the constraints of time, money
and the desire not to look out of place.
Water was a primary objective. Having invested so much time and effort trying
to avoid it, we now installed a series of linked barrels to collect around
500 gallons of rainfall run-off from the various roofs. (The long term plan
was to install underground storage but an impending move has forestalled
this). This to be used in the summer for assisting with garden irrigation
and for hygiene use should the need arise.
There is a mains supply of potable water, supplemented by bought bottled
and spring water from the adjacent hills captured and stored in ex-military
containers. (Again an underground cistern was planned).
When the recent floods hit, we found unprecedented amounts of rain had fallen
(up to 131mm locally) in just over 24 hours and the subsequent run-off completely
overwhelmed the drainage systems. It is not uncommon in these parts for the
hill roads to turn into rivers after a storm, but the amount coming off the
peaks was phenomenal. Due to our location on a hillside, we were in little
danger of standing –floods, but fortunately had sandbagged the ventilation
bricks and doorways to deal with the expected run off. Even so, the bags
were in danger of being overtopped by the sheer volume of water. This caught
us somewhat by surprise, never before had we needed to cover these points.
The mains water supply is electrically pumped throughout the area, so it
is not unknown for it to fail when the power goes down. We had sufficient
water available to deal with what was thankfully a short-term event. However,
the provision of more capacity could only be a good thing especially in the
event of a long term incident.Our electricity supply is mains provided, but
due to local conditions is fairly unreliable, going off on average once a
month. We have back-up for heating, cooking and lighting, with a variety
of methods for providing for each. As well as propane heaters and cooking
rings, we have wood stored and several camping style cooking sets using differing
fuels. Lighting from candles, hurricane and Coleman lamps as well as the
ubiquitous MagLites complete the list. Wind up radios are used to keep connected
to news services.
This system works well for us in a bug-in situation, with some of the kit
doubling for the bug-out bags, in which it is normally kept. It again worked
this time and we are currently replenishing supplies ready for the autumn
and winter weather.
We thought that given the predicted rainfall, bugging-in would be the best
solution and this proved to be so. We also planned to be on site during the
event as the lower surrounding area a re prone to flooding and we have been
cut-off in the past. Had we been caught out of position, one or more of us
would have been stranded. Cars were washed away by previously unheard of
levels of rainfall and all exit routes were simply inundated. We have multiple
exit routes planned and driven, but all were closed in a very short time.
Several staff members at one of our employers, who also live nearby, had
to remain in the building for several days, unable to get out . Even if they
could have escaped the building, they would have been unable to return to
their homes due to the floodwaters.
Being aware of the potential for the area to become cut off by bad weather,
we keep an above average level of consumables in. This includes foodstuffs,
medications, hygiene materials etc. We keep little in freezers, having lost
the contents once too often when power remained off too long. Most foods
are either canned or dried and when the power does fail, we emulate the NCIS
agents Jethro Gibbs and Kate Todd and eat the ice-cream before it melts!
When we could get from the property into the nearby town, we found the shelves
of the shops were depleted of nearly everything. Some panic buying had apparently
occurred, but this was also down to the inability to re-supply them as the
entire area was cut off from road and rail links. The disturbing
part about this was that this took no more than a couple of days for the
shelves to
empty. It seems that the ‘just-in-time’ approach also now applies
to your local food store and those behind-the-shop front warehouses are no
longer filled with more than a day or two’s goods.
What this would mean in a long term situation became all too obvious further
down the Severn’s route as large scale efforts had to be mobilised
to bring in bottled water and emergency food supplies to stranded people.
In summary, our initial site location work and subsequent ‘prepping’ served
us well during this event, but if any of us had been caught out of position,
or had we decided at the last minute to ‘bug-out’ as flood levels
rose, we might well have found ourselves in a different situation.
No matter what precautions one takes, it is surely down to the Grace of God
as to what happens and how well you fare. We are currently planning our next
adventure, a move out of the UK to a small patch of land somewhere in the Mediterranean.
The planning and preparation for this has been ongoing for several years. More
on that in a future article. Keep safe. - Michael in England
