melinda wrote:
> I hope everyone is okay, considering the wild weather this
> area (Newcastle NSW Australia) went through just over a
> month a ago you all have my best wishes for a speedy dry out
> and I hope it doesn't get any worse.
I have very mixed feelings about the 'local' attitude to the current
floods, given that I was there first-hand (though indirectly
affected[1]) for the June floods in Yorkshire, which were very much
given a "it's grim up north" spin on the news[2].
I realise that the Severn and Thames valleys are perhaps a little bit
more densely occupied in parts[2.5] than the vast tracts of Doncaster
Levels (and Tewkesbury looks particularly badly affected, it being at
the confluence[3] of two rivers, but I feel a bit jaded at how the
interests of the 'home-counties set' appears to be disproportionately.
Even the fact that a stretch of M1 was closed (for some part because of
the traffic chaos/impassableness off-exit, but also when there was
danger of a reservoir breaking its banks and washing away parts of
several towns and the motorway itself) seemed to be given the "usual
traffic chaos" spin on all but the local news (which was, in turn,
concentrating far more on the threat to homes).
Obviously "The News" concentrates on /current/ events, but on Monday,
there was also a (local) report that residents of one of our communities
(Toll Bar, I think) were /just/ getting into temporary caravan
accommodation that they would probably be in for the next six months
while their homes were dried out/repaired, and hopefully not then to
suffer regular winter-time repeat flooding. But this was on local news,
we having escaped the worst of last weekend's troubles[4].
It is also said that Hull is the "forgotten city" of the floods. I
haven't personally strayed any further east than Doncaster, and hear
blessed little of that area.
On the weekend, I shall be taking part in a voluntary exercise to clear
up the ravaged riverside route (an idyllic 'green route' down the centre
of the city, but obviously hit first (and left last) by the
flood-waters) and from what I've already seen, a lot needs to be done.
And unlike the shopping centre[5], there's very little cash being
chucked at the problem, but I can wheel wheelbarrows, shovel silt and
hack into bundles of broken branches, so that's what I'm hoping to do.
> (I really hope that all makes sense to other people and not
> just me...)
You do make sense, and apologies if I appear to have hijacked your
message of camaraderie with those currently affected. I hope that those
among our number that are in that area aren't too badly affected. I do
vaguely remember the NSW situation being described back then by someone
so affected[6], and I hope things are back to normal/tolerable (delete
where over-optimistic). I'm also aware of the the climatically-related
heat-waves across southern Europe and (at least peripherally) countless
other impediments to a happy life across the globe (caused by the hand
of nature and/or man) and I feel remiss in not being able to
individually care about each and every event or situation, especially
(if you'll excuse the narrowing of vision) those affecting one of our
number.
[1] For me, it was just the accompanying traffic chaos and massively
detours I had to take to get a (normally) short distance home, though at
several points in my journey I could see main routes under several feet
of water. I'm not going to have problem with flooding at my house if
below biblical levels, but I did later witness first-hand some of the
worst extremes of local flooding (e.g. the one that took out the entire
lower-level of the large local) shopping centre by walking off over the
local hill and observing RAF Rescue helicopters at work.
[2] Which, incidentally, contained little, if any, mention of any NSW
events, typical of the bog-standard anglocentrism.
[2.5] Less so than the industrial conurbation up here, but thankfully
that's mostly spread over hilly land, meaning not so many people, by
proportion at the bottom of the valleys at the upstream end of the
crisis. (Logic dictates that within a few days the flood-surge will
reach London, however, which could potentially affect more people, even
taking into account terrain undulations,)
[3] Noting that Tewkesbury is reported as having 10,000 people and looks
massively flooded, but 20% of homes in Hull (recorded as having ~250,000
people) have been affected by standing water. And all but 15 of its 105
schools.
[4] Well, I was in Shropshire over the weekend, the other side of the
Pennines, and indirectly affected by flooding /again/ when other
flooding forced a change of route for the organised activity I was
involved. On the whole, I consider myself lucky that I'm only generally
affected by road-related issues, though.
[5] Even the major banks did not get their premises opened again until
recently, one of them yesterday, though a few plucky small-time traders
(probably through necessity) appear to have quickly gotten open again.
[6] Memory like a sieve, with names, apologies if it was you.
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