Cry Me A RIver

And the rain fell. It surely fell!

At the weekend, there had been some heavy rain, and with a major rainfall (two weeks rain in 1 hour), the water was not able to soak into the hills, or flow into the drains. It ran off into rivers, and along roads.

Laxey was originally a little fishing village at the bottom of a glen. As the population grew, houses were built up the sides of the valley. The roads to the houses often proved to be the path of least resistance, and the rain falling on the hills very quickly drained into the river. There was just too much water for the river and drains to cope.

In the picture above, there's a digger in the river, and what appears to be a second river flowing alongside the original. The Department of Infrastructure had breached the wall by the river, and placed the digger in the river. The intention was to excavate some of the river bed to make flooding less likely. However, the timing was such that the digger became part of the problem. The water was not able to flow as quickly as it had to navigate around the blockage of the digger. Also, the breach in the wall meant water was able to escape the river at a higher point than it would have done if there had been a whole wall, and no digger.

The Beloved was on-call and was out in Laxey helping people. He set up a rest station in the local church, and also deployed sand bag to help divert water.