2007

The Great Flood of 2007

Everyone who was there will remember this.

This page is my notes - we'd love to get more details and memories to expand this page and add others..

A massive amount of rain fell - perhaps 3 months worth in 5 days.

The result was predictable, if unprecedented*. Huge floods.

The flooding was a combination of river flooding, which we get a lot, combined with surface flooding (due to volumes of rain overwhelming the drains). It was the surface flooding that caused the initial chaos, esp on roads, but the river flooding that did the major damage.

• 21 July - flooding starts. Surface flooding traps many cars.
• 22 July - river flooding starts.
  • I was driving around and saw all the cars that owners had abandoned the previous day.
  • Tewkesbury Abbey flooded for first time in 200+ years. Mythe Water Treatment plant flooded, resulting in no water for 2 weeks for many people, (350,000 to 420,000, estimates vary). (Water in pipes was Ok, so most people had water for a day or so). Initial reports suggest water off for 3-4 days, but I for one didn't believe that and guessed at least 10. Memo to self - don't trust everything you hear from officials.
  • Massive emergency services operation to prevent Waltham power substation flooding (would have cut off 500,000 people).
  • Gloucester and Cheltenham came within 2 inches of an evacuation, (to where?). (You can't live in a city in summer without power or water, though we discovered that without water could be done).
• 23 July - local power went off.
• 24 July - local power back on, operation Bowser begins, and the Army start distributing 3 million bottle of water a day.
  • Flood Peak was I think 23-24 July. After that it was all clearing up, though we did have a nasty worry when a potential deluge passed by, but didn't drop too much water.

It was about 2 weeks before water was restored and most people got back to normal.

Those (thousands) who were flooded however could expect to take 6-12 months to get back into their homes.

* I got very tired of hearing politicians claim that the floods were unprecedented as if that meant that they were unpredicatable. Good planning is about predicting, and providing that so predictable events do not lead to unprecedented events. My, when it happens, will have been unprecedented because it will never have happed before. It is however entirely predictable that I will die. (Though hopefully not for some decades yet).