Deke

Posts tagged with "floods"

"If a nuclear engineer told me grass was green I still wouldn't believe him."

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 1:04:30 AM

That was a quote from a farmer back in 1957. His farm was close to the Windscale nuclear reactor, and back in '57 they had an incident. It was a fire, but over the entire period of the incident and its aftermath it was never referred to as such. With the cooperation of the authorities and a much more pliant news service than we have today it was described as all manner of weird things, all of which translated into 'fire', but the 'F' word was never used.

Speaking today a present day "Nuclear expert" said it was ridiculous. "They said that the smoke coming from the chimney was steam and completely harmless," he said. "But nothing visible should come out of that chimney. Whatever you could see meant you were in trouble." No one told the poor old farmer that and he went on his merry way believing that a little iodine dissolved in steam was completely harmless. It took a travelling salesman who called in on the farm to tell him that his cow's milk was now dangerously polluted and was going to have to be poured away.

News footage of the day showed churns of milk being poured down the drain. This was actually staged by angry farmers, the milk was, in fact, watered down until the radiation was 'harmless' and then poured into the sea.

Some of the harmless radiation washed up on the shores of Ireland.

I doubt anyone needs reminding that they're having a bit of a nuclear problem in Japan right now. On our news we were assured that it was unlikely that any radiation to escape into the atmosphere would be "Negligible" and "Harmless" (There's that word again). The 20 Km exclusion belt was a precautionary measure they said, and so was the 30 Km exclusion belt. When radiation was found in the sea they said it was mostly normal and probably unconnected with the accident. On the BBC a weatherman, put on the spot, opined that "The radioactive iodine is unlikely to reach us". Later in a more researched answer another meteorologist stated that we were lucky as we were on the other side of the world. If any of the radiation from Japan did reach us, he said, it would be unmeasurable. Today (Actually I've just noticed that it's now yesterday...) they told us that the radiation had reached us but it was only about a 10,000th of background radiation.

So it IS measurable then.

Meanwhile in one of its 'Number crunching' spots 'Private Eye' listed the following:-
200,000: Approximate number of people evacuated from around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
2002: Year in which a whistleblower alerted the authorities to falsified safety records at the plant.
29: Number of times that Tepco (Plant owners) were found to have falsified records to conceal damage to reactors.

I'm not like that farmer. If a nuclear engineer told me grass was green I'd agree with him, but if he told me nuclear power was safe I might just laugh at him a bit.

6 comments

Another new clear day.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 1:16:03 AM

disaster, global, tsunami, Money ...

Hey, stop groaning. You're lucky. I was going to go with 'Have we had our fission chips?' until the man-with-the-hat

threatened me with the most unpleasant death since the mysterious 'unexpectedly warm day frozen slurry accident' in Siberia which everyone denies ever happened.

One of the biggest lies in regular use today is that nuclear power is safe. No it's not. We know it, they know it, and Mad Jack McMadjack the Mad of Madjacksonville knows it. It's "safety" relies upon political class security and a lot of concrete. Nuclear power is dangerous, and that's why they don't build them in cities.

They're not, of course, the only dangerous entities on this planet, but most of the the really dangerous stuff is at least fully understood, the problem with nuclear power is that we can only protect its generating plants against the known. The unknown is a bit of a problem.

Today an 'expert' said on the news "We, thank goodness, can build on safe bedrock. We're not on a faultline", and that, oh people of Earth, is the kind of attitude that terrifies me.

Britain does get earthquakes. It gets loads of them. Very occasionally they gather up enough force to tip someone out of bed or bring a garden wall down, and then they get talked about, but most of the time they go unfelt and ignored.

That doesn't mean they're not there.

Just because we've never had anything approaching a major quake doesn't mean we never will, just because we've never been hit by a tsunami doesn't mean we never will, and just because terrorists from the planet Zoqq haven't bombed us doesn't mean they never will. In other words there's always going to be something unexpected waiting in the wings.

If there wasn't, we'd have no need for newsreaders.

5 comments

Venezuela: A gondola with a harpoon.

Friday, December 7, 2007 12:37:01 AM

wind, storms, floods, weather ...

Frugal: A search engine for fruit.

But enough of this merriment, there's a 200mph jet stream somewhere up there in the sky and it's dragging weather across us at a vast rate of knots, including the wind. OK, so the wind itself is not running at 200mph, or even 100, but something just... went somewhere behind the house. An almighty crack followed by something crashing a little further up the hill.

I'm just wondering if it's the new roof that I put on the shed/pavillion and have been meaning to reinforce all summer.

The problem was we didn't really have a summer.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Meanwhile 'they' have updated the predictions of flooding given the new weather patterns that they're expecting these global-warmed days. On the big map we're still not in a particularly dangerous area, but on a local level the housing estate opposite us and all the new building that they're committing on the marsh alongside us has resulted in us being 'upgraded' a little.

To put it in a nutshell, we should be applying for sandbags.

We're not alone. There's now a travelling roadshow selling anti-flooding produce touring the country. Fortunately we're still insured against it (Flooding, not the roadshow...) so when it hits us (The roadshow, not the flooding) we shall ignore it like the fools we are, and complain like hell when we do get flooded.

2 comments

You don't need floods when you have water on the brain.

Saturday, July 28, 2007 11:41:36 PM

floods, parking, arf arf

So this lady leaves her car, quite legitimately, in a car park. The park is on a hillock, and she parks it near the top.

The floods come.

When she returns her car is untouched, but unreachable as the water around it is waist deep. She decides that not only is it pointless getting to the car since she couldn't drive it out, but that it is probably dangerous as well, there's quite a current in that water.

The following day she returns to see if the floods have gone down. They haven't, but on her car she can now see a parking ticket.

Someone has waded through that waist deep water for the sole purpose of ticketing a car that obviously can't be moved.

I wouldn't have waded through that water even if the car deserved to be ticketed. You do have to wonder what goes through the minds of some people sometimes.

I guess it's anything for a bonus.

9 comments

Town in 'Not flooded' shock, horror.

Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:31:03 PM

rant, floods, aagh

I guess it's understandable that people who'd just got used to the idea that they hadn't been flooded out when suddenly they were, might be a little miffed about it and want someone to blame, but it seems to me a mite churlish to complain because you didn't get washed out.

The problem the Environment Agency had with this month's storminess was that it was a first. These 'super-rains' are usually a winter phenomenon, in the summer the earth isn't in the same condition and the computer models didn't work. Give them their due, they tweeked our delayed flood into the computer and improved their predictions for further downstream and were able to give a far more accurate prediction for other, more seaward, habitations.

Thus it was that last night the town of Reading prepared itself for the worst, and didn't get it.

Oh sure, they got some flooding, but others had piled up the sandbags and moved the furniture and nary a drop of liquid refreshment crawled under their doors. They interviewed one of these lucky escapees on TV and was he happy? was he relieved? was he snut. He complained about over-exageration and 'typical' over-reaction on the behalf of the authorities and wasn't too happy about the TV companies encouraging them in their endeavors.

Hopefully the Authority have made a note of his address, and next time they won't bother to over-react in his presence.

For some reason no one was taking up the al-fresco option...
Photo © Matt Bullock

3 comments

Was that a mighty storm?

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 7:51:29 PM

rain, floods, wetness, storm ...

They underestimated by 24 hours. The surge hit us last night. Of course, when I say "Us", I mean 'them'. We're still home free and dry as an Ausie's armpit.

The news is full of acts of bravery, heroism, and people being just plain nice to each other, so it almost seems churlish to rain (No pun intended) upon anyone's parade, but...

Vandals have been having a gay old time in abandoned houses, 'Anti-looting' wardens are scouring the streets, people in big cars are driving through flooded areas 'because they can', with no consideration for what the wash they're causing might do, and - live on TV - a reporter got her bum fondled.

Yes indeed. There she was, telling us all about the sudden arrival of the 'Look out. The floods are coming!' police on this small community, and up creeps this weird guy with a Mona Lisa grin. As he passes the reporter he leans a little to the left, down shoots his hand, one backside fondled before a shocked nation and he's off.

Having been filmed and watched by millions of viewers I suppose if he ever does get picked up and charged he'll simply claim that he can't get a fair trial because there aren't enough people who didn't see the event to form a jury.

Meanwhile the water's getting a little too close for comfort. All these pictures were taken fairly close to where we live, and there's been more rain threatened, although, to be fair, the Channel 5 weather girl did say that the rain that was coming wouldn't normally be a problem, it's just that it's going to mingle with what's already down here.

I feel better already.

~~~~~~

Today's pics © Dave Hart, Carl de Souza/AFPGetty Images, Matt Bullock, & the BBC.

6 comments

Tales from the riverbank

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 4:55:17 PM

water, floods, wetness, rivers

The floods supposedly peaked at around midnight UTC although the floods-rescue people are advising that there is still water working its way down from the hills and there may be occasional after-surges.

We've also been promised more rain. Oh good, I was getting worried that it wasn't wet enough over here yet.

I sat up to listen to the arrival of the surge on local radio, and inexplicably, given that they had been broadcasting 24hrs, they chose that moment to close down, handing over the channel to national Radio 5...

So I went to bed.

This morning there were a couple of new stories on the news

(If you catch my drift...).

A couple of miles upstream from here 3 holiday-longboats had tied up for the night. They awoke to find themselves apparently in midstream. After shouting to each other for a bit they surmised that they were in fact still tied up to the bank, but the whole area was now flooded. Unable to see where the river actually was they remained where they were waiting for the waters to go down again.

They didn't.

When you're anchored to pegs driven into the ground you're usually safe enough, but when those pegs are underwater they tend to lose a little purchase, and one of the boats pulled free. The downstream boat managed to get a line aboard and reel her in, but now there were two boats pulling on the one mooring...

They did what anyone would have done under the circumstances and telephoned the local radio.

Within half an hour two local farmers and a reporter with two tractors and two canoes were on their way.

This story prompted another boatman to call in. He too was anchored in the middle of nowhere, but he had been attatched to a proper bollard. These don't give way quite so easily underwater, so as the waters rose the boat was pulled slowly over.

Fortunately, falling out of bed awoke the gentleman to his predicament and he loosed off the ropes and lassoed a nearby tree, pulled himself up, and anchored the boat to it.

Then he realised he was now on the towpath.

As he said, what he now needed to do was to keep an eye on the height of the water so that when it started to go down he could push himself out again before he became becalmed on the path.

It sounds like hours of endless fun, this messing about on the river thing.

Today's photos © Tony Stoyle, David McManamon, Sang Tan/AP, Kirsten Wright & Rebecca Lacey.

2 comments

One bright, sunny Sunday evening, an idle fellow has some idle thoughts...

Monday, July 23, 2007 9:47:17 PM

rain, floods

It was a great evening.

Yesterday there was scarcely a cloud in the sky as I stood at the back door watching the sun slowly head east and listened to the radio.

On the radio a guy was standing on a bridge not a mile from here and watching the river. We're expecting a surge, which probably means 'flood', and even though we knew it wasn't about to happen yet, the guy said he'd swear that he could see the water rising. Someone else called in and said that a tributary of the river ran past the bottom of his garden and it was already a foot up his summerhouse. Why weren't they mentioning the tributaries? The presenter said he thought they were, but if they weren't he'd make sure that they did, but meanwhile the next town downstream had been flooded. Another tributary had burst its banks and they had unexpectedly copped it before we did.

Time for a guilty sigh of relief. Their misfortune meant that pressure on the river up at our end would be relieved,

temporarily.

Watching that sunset and gazing at the bone dry gardens whilst basking in the still warm sunlight, it seemed impossible that we were almost entirely cut off from the world outside.

There must be some mistake.

Yet still the radio went on. The local football stadium had been commandeered for the up to 1,500 people expected to be displaced by the overnight flooding. The railway lines to London were currently still open but were expected to be closed by morning. A motorway was grinding to a standstill. The by-pass had been brought to a halt. One by one local schools were announcing that they would not be open tomorrow. The list of streets affected by floodwater continued to rise, and I was starting to recognise the names of some of them. It was a little like election night when your party is taking a pasting, every now and then a road would be declared free from water and a little cheer would go up as your lot finally gained a seat.

This morning the truth was revealed. Most of the southern half of Britiain was underwater. Two weeks ago most of the northern half was similarly afflicted. I almost feel guilty for not being a part of it. Meanwhile the natives are getting restless. They want to know why weren't we warned? Why isn't more being done? Where are the people who fix these problems?

Well in answer to question one, we were. I heard the weather forecast 36 hours before the rains came warning that southern England was about to be hit by a month's worth of rain in just a few hours, which would inevitably mean flooding. A day earlier a flyer had dropped though my door from the local council. It was about what to do in case of a disaster. I didn't read it. I wonder how many other people who are now complaining of being unprepared simply ignored the weather forcast and the flyer, just like me? I guess I just got lucky.

As for doing more about it. Until 'it' happens who knows what is going to happen and where? If the authorities were to be ready for everything that could ever possibly happen anywhere in the country the tax bill would be... beyond my abilities to calculate.

And for the final irony, the people who fix these problems are themselves caught up in it.

I'm not trying to say there's nothing that can or should be done, but the point is that there was no way of knowing that the jet stream was going to detour south, it's supposedly a once in a lifetime thing, but we're now told that we have to expect extreme events more frequently so it's now time for the government to come up with a long term strategy to deal with future events,

but let's not take them to task for not being prepared for something that we only had one and a half days notice of.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we first moved into this area my parents apparently checked out a house on an island in the river. A local asked them if they had kids. They confirmed that they did, in fact, have three. He told them not to buy the house because they'd never have a moments peace for wondering if the river had got their kids whenever one of us disappeared. The blue door on the right is one of the houses near where we would have moved.

The view would have been great, that's it on the left (If I've formatted this correctly...) but a caller to the radio programme said that the water was just starting to lap over the edge of the island.

I guess I got lucky again...

All these pictures were taken by local residents and sent to the BBC for display upon its news pages. The photogs were...

Daniel Messer, Lou Hannan, 'Steve & Karen', Alan Miles, Phil Armstrong, Mark Wadley, Paul Hughes, Bob Bradley, Andrew Roland, Mark McArthur-Christie, Alison Nicholson, Karen McCallum, Michael Green, Chris Farmer, & inevitably... Anon.

2 comments