Flood line.

[cromwell]

I think you are right Kaz. Now that million pound houses are being flooded the heat will really be on.

[Kaz]

Sad but true - although when you are knee deep in cr@p and water being wealthy isn't a lot of comfort......and only some of the residents in these places are wealthy, many have lived there since before they became wealthy commuter belt towns......

[Diflower]

That's completely true Kaz.
The flood I experienced was the road we lived in (1968/9? ). It reached to literally our back door step (the garden was 200+ ft long), but all the houses further down the road were flooded, the gardens were gradually shorter than ours and the stream at the bottom burst its banks. Normally quite a small stream but high steep banks, so when it burst it was one hell of a lot of water.

Us kids were swimming along the road, to get to the end where the army came with canoes and sandbags, and there were dustbins hurtling out from each house. The ones at the end were bungalows, for old people. Opposite was a pair of small blocks of flats, just two storeys high but all of them decamped over there and just stood at the windows, watching their homes go under.
At the bottom of the road, where it was worst, the water was more than 3 ft deep in the houses/bungalows.
Across the main road from there, it was exactly the same, in the road that the stream then followed. Ours was a road of council houses, that road a very swish, expensive one with great big houses and bungalows.
Everyone was affected the same, and everyone behaved just the same. There were those from each road not affected, cooking food and making hot drinks and soup, for the residents and the army. And those flooded all trying to console each other and help with moving anything they could to keep it safe.

For months and months after, the two roads were joined, every household that had been flooded was helped equally by those from both roads, people cooking extra meals, looking after children, helping with insurance claims, eventually decorating, etc.
It's an absolutely dreadful thing to happen, it takes months for houses to recover, they absolutely stink and without a really good spell of dry weather they carry on stinking.
No amount of 'government help' can actually do all that much in the short term, it's long-term that matters, not building on flood plains, properly dredging, maintaining and improving flood defences.
We're a very small island, floods are part of our history, we can't stop them but we can try to stop them affecting houses so much.

[Kaz]

Agreeing with you totally there Di. There are lots of people in Staines, Egham and Wraysbury in council housing, or what was council housing stock, now purchased. There are also people living in private housing who have lived there for many years and bought when it was much cheaper, mainly older people, or who have maybe inherited from parents, and then there are the new people who have to be wealthy or high earning as the housing is so crazily expensive now.....it is an interesting mix at times, even in the same road

[Workingman]

Also agreeing with Di.

What happened back then is going to have to happen this time - all for one one for all. People will choose to do it even though it is Hobson's in reality.

On C4 news last night there was a piece about much of this water still being on the surface, possibly into May, because the water tables are so high. That will hamper the drying out of cellars and foundations and the clean-up operation to goodness knows what effect.

[cromwell]

More light is being shone on the Environment Agency, and to me it is revealling what a shower (no pun intended) they really are.
Baroness Young is the precursor to Chris Smith as head of the EA; another labour peer and she was appointed by Tony Blair. She once famously said that she would like to see "A limpet mine attached to every pumping station in the Somerset levels". Nice!
It's also come out that the EA spent £2.4 million on PR last year; which is more than dredging the levels would have cost.
They also sponsored a Gay Pride event in Birmingham at a cost of £30,000.
This really isn't what they should be spending money on, imo.
Also it shows how much of our public bodies have been quango-ised. Who is in charge here? The environment minister, Patterson? Head of the EA, "Lord" Smith? Why two bosses?
We have far too many Quangos; they are beyond democratic accountability and they should be done away with one by one.

[KateLMead]

I heartily agree Cromwell.

[Kaz]

Hear! Hear!

[Aggers]

We have far too many Quangos; they are beyond democratic accountability and they should be done away with one by one.

I would go one better than that, Cromwell.

They should all be done away with - simultaneously. They are a sheer waste of public money.

[debih]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weath ... rtion.html

I thought this was a good article.

I feel for those that are flooded but this does put it into perspective.