Many Hebden Bridge shops that have been closed since the double floods of 22nd June and 9th July are just about getting ready to reopen. But, after three weeks of relatively dry weather, it’s been raining all day again and the rivers are very high. Christ, I hope it doesn’t flood again or some of these shops will probably never re-open. These don’t look the most adequate flood defences in the world.
While I have been away in Russia, the clean-up has continued back home, and the end cost starts to be more apparent. My local, the Railway – where I have probably drunk twice a week, maybe more on average, for 10 years, is closed for two to three months. Several other businesses may not reopen at all, the cost of the cleanup not being worth the trouble. A furniture retailer in Mytholmroyd lost half a million pounds of stock in a single night. And probably the insurers will bicker about something.
Anyway, those of us who frequent the Railway have, for a while, had to find somewhere else to spend our Friday evenings. Today it was Marshall’s bar: themselves unable to serve anything on draught, cans and bottles only. It felt slightly wrong, but not too bad. I wish it hadn’t had to happen, however.
Between about 10pm last night and 4am this morning Hebden Bridge town centre was under about 2 feet of water. (As you can see from many other pictures on this site we live 50 or so feet above the valley floor: luckily.) It drained quickly, and by the time I got down there at 10am, the flood water had gone. So no pictures of that.
But the damage had been done. At least half the businesses in the town centre were not open today and some might be closed for two weeks or more, a great dent in income in a time of diminished revenue as it is. The fire service were doing wonders, working all day to pump out cellars and basements. But although it did rain a lot yesterday, let’s also consider that most of the drains in this town are regularly blocked by dirt, leaves and debris because the Council don’t clean them: and we supposedly have a rather expensive flood defence system installed two miles up the valley (built after the last big flood in 2000) – which, for reasons no one is very clear about yet (was it not activated? Or simply inadequate despite the money spent?) – has failed. People couldn’t get hold of sandbags to protect their property. It’s the people, the businesses, of Hebden Bridge who will be picking up the costs of these mistakes.
It’s still raining. It’s been raining all day. Heavily. The flood warning sirens in Hebden Bridge went off an hour ago: just an initial warning, but only about the third time since I’ve been living here (11 years). It’d better not: I’m supposed to be going to Russia on Sunday.
So we move into the second trimester of this blog. End of November, December, January and most of February – the winter months. Expect lots of pictures of the cold and wet. I get several trips abroad in this period but they’re all to Norway (to where I head once more, tomorrow), Russia, the Netherlands – you won’t be seeing any winter warmth.
This picture was the only really interesting thing to happen today but is deceiving. The flood has been caused not by rain but by water flooding out (literally) from a burst mains pipe and drowning the road.
Being 42 