Now I Know How Noah Felt

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When will people learn that rivers are prone to flooding and that not much can be done about it short of not building your house on a flood plain.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

or short of not fiddling around with the rivers levels/banks/course that makes it a hella lot more prone to flooding.

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

You build some bloody houses, Ed.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

I shall not. It might impact the value of my ivory tower.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

The good news: I've just heard that the Botley Road isn't flooded anymore.

The bad news: the water has turned to BLACK ICE.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is your house okay Mark? I thought of you yesterday when they closed the Abingdon Road - I hope you're not underwater!

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

My house is ok, fortunately.

This is what it's like outside my old office (the one we've just moved out of).

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

i hope you are toadying up to yr bosses in respect of their amazing meteorological foresight, mark h

my mum takes the same harsh told-you-so line as ed, eg: "if you buy a house on a floodplain it's yr own look-out" (mum and dad's house is right on top of a hill)

somewhere in my flat i have the shropshire star's special millennium picture supplement, poetically titled "shrewsbury under water in the year 2000"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

I have that too. Somewhere. Ironbridge floods every year without fail. There's even a pub slightly further along the river where they make a mark on the wall showing where the flood water got to that year. (Atually it may have beeen destroyed in 2000 floods, will have to check with my dad. Or Mark. The Boat, towards Jackfield? Any ideas?)

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't understand how houses survive being flooded. Builders must be brilliant.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

How's transport between Oxford and London? Not that I'm keen to avoid getting into the office or anything?

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Cement is insoluble, which is why its so convenient for holding bricks together even under water. However the damp can cause cracks due to the bricks swelling or even freezing whilst still full of water.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

medieval glaziers sure knew how to use putty:

http://www.nepmidlands.co.uk/btawards/newsarchive/2001/04apr/images/flood.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

wow, where was that?

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

that's the abbey and the english bridge (but not the gay meadow) from some godforsaken riverside cellar in shrewsbury (while it was "underwater in the year 2000")

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

How's transport between Oxford and London?
fine by road (well, if you use the Oxford Tube)

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Has the Oxford Tube become like a waterchute?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

somehow the idea of using the tube in an unusually flooded area doesn't appeal!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

Knackers.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

What, as in 'Gippos'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ed does not realises that the river Fleet once flowed at the bottom of our street, and shall once again if it keeps raining... however, we're on the first floor so we shall merely laugh. Quite quietly, as we'll have no leckie.

― kate, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 14:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

We're about 10 metres above the level of the fleet, even at the front door. I feel safe.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 14:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

you remember what used to happen to the yard at the Greys Inn Building... and that was in non-flood years! The River Fleet shall burst its banks and flow once more, you will see... ::adopts prophet stance::

(Ed, currently cooking at the stove is wondering what I am looking all smug and pious about)

― kate, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 14:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

and yea the thames shall rise and all camden basin shall wail and rend their pashminas, for the dust and filth of years shall be swept before the floods as chaff before the winnowing rod

this i dremt

― mark s, yr of our lord 2003 (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 14:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

I thought this thread was going to be about pairs of animals converging on your flat.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

MARK S IS A PRINCE AMONG MEN. "all camden basin shall wail and rend their pashminas" HAHAHAHAHA!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

I have two cats. And I live on top of a hill.

― Mrs Noah (C J), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

i live in the north west and am laughing at you all.

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

i am laughing at michael;)

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

I live in Scotland and I am freezing.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

But I live in Crouch End and I am also freezing.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

Freezing here in Putney. Over and out.

― Mark C (Mark C), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

Strangely in Clerkenwell its 28C and I'm sunning myself on the windowsill.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

i am laughing at gareth's tie.

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

must surely be freezing in Oxfordshire too - have not these flooded streets now turned into a giant ice rink?

― Jeff W, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

the flooded tubes have turned into giant popsicles!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Ed did not noticed when I turned the heating well up in order to dry my clothes on the radiator... provoking long discussion about the best way to dry clothes... we can have IL* chatter in real time!)

― kate, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

Freezing in Brighton. At least I do not live on (or IN, as it often was) the Lewes flood plain any more.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

''must surely be freezing in Oxfordshire too - have not these flooded streets now turned into a giant ice rink?''

if that's true then grebt!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 22:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

-6 degrees in Oxfordshire, Brrrrrr.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 22:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

now that the railway line twixt Didcot & Oxford is no longer actually flooded, can we assume that any delays are being blamed on the "wrong type of ice"?

Our water feature isn't working this morning. Not sure whether it has frozen up or has just been switched off so it *doesn't* freeze up.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 08:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

Breaking news on the Today programme this morning: exhaustive (and fascinating) experiments with two bird baths proved, live on air, that hot water DOES freeze faster than cold, so we shouldn't put it in our bird baths in the hope of warming our little feathered friends. World-shaking.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 09:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

bird bath + cold weather = bent beaks

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 10:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hot water freezes quicker than cold water becoz when it is hot more of it evaporates hence there is less water to freeze when the tempteratures equalize!

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't think that is not the reason, Pete. It is actually warm, not hot water, that freezes fastest. I followed this on the back page of the New Scientist for a while. I think the best reason I read was that cold water freezes too quickly on top, forming a cell that insulates the rest of the water.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

Strike 'not' from the first sentence above, sense fans.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

there was also loads of stuff in new scientist about those weird spikes that water in saucers sometimes has when it freezes

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

Has anyone heard that Australian guy on late night Radio 5 who answers questions on any scientific subject on the spot. He's brilliant, and has no links to far right politics that I know of!

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 12:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

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