Hiya again
It's been raining really hard for a day and a night. I woke up just after six this morning to find the Black Lynn, the burn at the bottom of our garden, having risen above its banks and inching up towards our garden fence.
As I type these lines (ca. 08:30am), about one third of the recently-cleared wilderness is flooded but the waters are receding. There's a distinct whiff of human excrement in the air, so the rumour that raw sewage goes straight into the burn is probably true.
My neighbours have told me floods like this happen on a regular basis.
I can only say that someone made a big mistake when they "renovated" the burn crossing by simply putting a concrete slab down where, from the looks of the stone wall, there once was a small arched bridge. This means that clearance is at least twenty to twenty-five centimetres (about ten inches) less than before. What's more, two culverts run below the slab, further reducing clearance, the lower one skimming the surface of the water even on a good day:
I took the above and the next two photos two days before the first flood I've witnessed here:
The burn on a good day, with a pair of mallards enjoying the newly-cleared watercourse.
Until recently, the riverbed was chock full of litter: wooden planks, broken scooters, rope, plastic bottles, a traffic cone, an old tyre, some rusting box-like thing that may once have been an oven -- see for yourself:
Above, the low-lying culvert blocking the flow of debris and rubbish -- maybe a good thing but it's a flood event just waiting to happen; below, a look upstream from the same vantage point (photos taken Aug 4, 2008):
Some photos now to document the beginnings of the flood event before dawn, the cusp and the receding of the waters.
I started taking photos at 06:17, as the water was beginning to creep across the lane that crosses the burn:
By 06:50, the water was flowing right across the lane (above) , after which it began to fill the lane itself:
The water creeping up the lane (07:03; above), filling the newly-cleared "community garden", and rushing down the car park, …
… covering much of it by 07:25:
The maximum was reached just before 07:30, which is when the water reached the top of the lane and the "feet" of my garden shed (water damage was not serious, but I wonder what the next flood will bring).
07:38 (above) and 07:40 (below)
The water began to recede about an hour after the maximum.
At 08:22 the burn continues to rush along its concrete trough. Above the bridge, it still spreads out into the newly-cleared "community garden" . I observed quite a few people walking down the lane from across the stream and having to turn back to take the long way around.
By 09:27, the lane has become passable again…
…and by 2:33pm, the water has actually receded to below the level at which I started photographing the event:
What I didn't photograph (I did have some work to do, actually) was the mallards that moved in about two hours after maximum level. They had a ball swimming about the new "lake" and scoffing up the nutritious worms etc that were washed up.
My new camera has come in handy as it can compensate for lack of lighting, at least up to a point. I am still learning to use it, so some of the colours are not right.
By about 12:40PM, the water had receded a bit, not because the rain had let up but because the fence that runs at a right angle from the stream has given way in one strategic point, which allows some of the overflow to take the straight course across the lane, through the metal fence and into the car park beyond.
And today, we have sun, hail, wind, calm, rain -- everything in quick succession, making for some stunning views:
