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Heavy Rains Continue in Britain
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by Brian A Kennedy | January 21, 2008 at 08:12 am
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Firefighters were evacuating homes and businesses as a band of heavy rain swept across northern England today and the Environment Agency issued a series of flood warnings.
Around 60 children were being evacuated from a nursery in Elland, near Huddersfield, a spokesman for the West Yorkshire fire and rescue service said.
The children were being moved from the building on Park Road to Brighouse fire station, the spokesman added.
In a dramatic rescue in Shropshire, a woman was saved by four police officers after spending the night trapped in her car after it was swept away by floods.
The 45-year-old had been trying to cross Borle brook, which joins the River Severn, in Shropshire, when she got into trouble at around 10pm yesterday.
Without a mobile phone signal she was unable to call for help, and was only rescued from her Vauxhall Astra at 9am after a passer-by heard her cries for help.
The four police officers formed a human chain to rescue the woman as her car began to fill up with water.
"Because it was pitch black, and as the car had been spun round by the current, she had become disorientated and didn't want to attempt stepping out," a spokesman for West Mercia police said.
"Even when it became daylight and she could see her predicament, she was too tired and exhausted to attempt leaving the car."
The dramatic rescue was one of several incidents caused by heavy rain and swollen rivers.
100 people were being evacuated from a factory in Silsden, while around 60 homes were flooded in Armitage Bridge, near Huddersfield as heavy rain continued to fall across the north of England, Wales and Gloucestershire.
The Environment Agency issued warnings for several areas, and residents are being urged to remain vigilant with river levels expected to peak tomorrow.
Officers from the agency said they were particularly concerned about the Rivers Aire and Calder in West Yorkshire after rainfall of between 30mm and 50mm was forecast for today.
"Some flooding is likely to happen in the region, but at this stage it is not thought to be as widespread or significant as the summer floods," Mark Tinnion, the agency's regional flood risk manager, said.
"We have been monitoring the situation very closely and we are starting to patrol areas at risk."
South Yorkshire police warned drivers to take care after reports of standing water in Rossington and the A6023 at Mexborough.
As the week progresses, river levels on the Ouse and Derwent are expected to rise. Levels at York are expected to be very high later in the week after rain works its way downstream.
Also in Yorkshire, Network Rail confirmed flooding had resulted in the suspension of all services on the line between Sheffield and Barnsley.
A Northern Rail spokesman said replacement buses were operating where available.
There were no trains operating from Leeds to York, Harrogate, Bradford, Manchester Victoria, Sheffield or Blackpool North. Lines were also suspended from Skipton station to Morecambe, Carlisle and Keighley, as well as from Ilkley to Guiseley.
"We have engineers and teams of operations staff out monitoring water levels and will reopen services as soon as it is safe to do so," a Network Rail spokeswoman said.
"We apologise to passengers who are disrupted by these flooding conditions and assure them that services will resume as soon as possible."
Families in Gloucestershire say they have been living in fear of a repeat of the summer flooding for more than a week, with warnings having been in place along the River Severn since January 12.
David Throup, of the Environment Agency, said river levels would peak tomorrow, but added that flooding was unlikely. "Residents shouldn't be concerned, but should remain vigilant," he added.
Gloucestershire county council and Gloucestershire police said they were on standby.
Helen Rossington, a forecaster for MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said rainfall could be expected across western England later today.
"It's going to be generally wet, cloudy and windy," she added. "The rainfall will start late this morning and continue through the afternoon. It will be light to begin with but some heavier bursts can be expected later in the day."
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
at 08:19 on January 21st, 2008
I think this is an important story and would benefit from other NowPublic contributors working on it. I've flagged it as News Wanted and invite others in relevant locations to look for more evidence.
at 13:21 on January 21st, 2008
The Crow River, Aberford, Nr Leeds, West Yorks, following it's normal route but above ground, the culverted version lies beneath and for most of the year you might never know a small stream passes under the field. It is believed this was the location of a small village or hamlet called Parlington, cleared away by the land owners over two hundred years ago!
Today's flood give an idea how the landscape might have looked all those years ago, so not all floods are bad news!
parlington has contributed a photo to this story.
at 15:08 on January 21st, 2008
This is a shot of the 'Calder Bridge' - Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK. Usually you an see the arches or the supports, but within a 5 hour period the river had swelled between 10 - 12 feet. The torrent of water was the wildest I have ever seen, carrying along with it; tree's and marine craft.
It was only last year that we endured the same style of flash flooding, affecting central and souther England. The thing that concerns me is that, all the focus is on improving flood defences, diverting the general public away from the question 'what is happening to the weather?'. What is actually causing it to rain this hard and for so long? Let me guess.. Global Warming ;-)
PaulAdlam has contributed a photo to this story.
at 15:54 on January 21st, 2008
It's not global warming, it's the jet stream, don't panic about Co2! It's not climate change and it'll happen again in 2016 to 2019 because these things go around in roughly blocks
of 10 year cycles, La Nina / El Nino is not caused by humans and can be predicted and is charted very well. 10 cycles for snow in Iraq for example means once
every 100 years, predicatable, so calm heads, no global warming panic.
Think about the solar cycle too, which fluxes in periods of between 10 and 12 years, go back to accounts of flooding and people will say "last time it was this bad was 10 years ago, 8 years ago" and that tells you in 8 years time we'll see this again in 10 years time this will happen again, perhaps one cycle will skip so it'll be 20 years before this happens again. We can't prevent weather, only prepare and deal with it better than we
do. What the weather folks should have done is say "you know we are in 2007 and erm well there's a pattern here going back at least 100 years, we should really check out this history, get me newspapers going back 160 years will you, we'll get this one predicted properly I tell you, we'll outsmart the climate models" And they would have outsmarted the modles if they'd have consulted history! Had they have done that they could have said in the summer "history tells us that we should be alert in 6 months time you know". No amount of computing power can help, looking at the past to predict the future can help plus we are an island nation!!
Remember the story was that 2007 was going to be the hotest driest year on record, 12 months ago, skiing in Europe to be wiped out (now it's the best year for snow and the resorts are thriving), so who do we take seriously, the climate change doomsayers or history and preditable organised chaos which is what La Nina El Nino is?
Take a look at the jet stream too, bang over the top of us again!
Globally La Nina is bringing cycles of floods and heavy snows and
really dramatic differences in temperature. Last night 15C, tonight
-3C? The weather is out of whack but it seems normal considering the La
Nina building.
Less money on the IPCC and giving nobel prizes to Al Gore, more sepnding on coping and predicting please!
at 00:37 on January 22nd, 2008
Here in Wakefield, I couldn't believe we were seeing the same thing again so soon, after the area was flooded twice last summer.
One of Wakefield's main roads into/out of the city closed for most of the afternoon, the beck at Westgate end protected by sandbags and JCBs and homes and businesses piling up the sandbags again.
I have to say that the various authorities were on the ball this time though. Gutters were swept as recently as Sunday morning, drains were inspected and cleaned out last week and the speed with which things swung into action was fairly impressive.
Things still relied on good old fashioned neighbourly spirit though, with a handful of householders laying sandbags for all the street, not just their own, where I live.
Luckily the water peaked around 2pm and began to slowly drop after that. Westgate reopened around 3:30 and the JCB holding the gate at the beck on Brookes Bank was moved overnight.
There was no serious impact, so far as I know, although it came very close. Some of the homes and businesses in the area took months to sort out last time, so they will feel they've had a lucky escape this time I guess.
Ings Beck still looks very full but the level continues to drop. Hopefully, any further rain will be less intense and the flood defence systems around the area will be able to cope.
at 03:33 on January 22nd, 2008
This is the river Severn in Shrewsbury last night. The water levels had been rising all day. This is the football pitch of the local high school.
Simon Weeks has contributed a photo to this story.
at 06:47 on January 22nd, 2008
Local rivers around Rochdale, Greater Manchester were bursting their banks and the town centre was closed yesterday as the river Roche which runs through the town cenre was at a dangerous level. Rochdales Hopwood Hall college situated close to the river sent home students as a precaution.