WeatherBrains listener Irene in the UK wrote us with an account of the flooding in her country that caused so much devastation last week.
I have just listened to issue 199 and thought you may like to hear about what has been happening over here in the U.K.
Thursday of last week we had terrible floods in the north west. Cockermouth in particular had the worst conditions for years; maybe unprecedented. One policeman lost his life when a bridge collapsed and hundreds of people were driven out of their homes, only to return later to find businesses ruined and homes deluged in filthy water.
The streets were chest high under fast running water and even in these conditions, Some people preferred to stay where they were, either in business premises or at home, believing that other people were in greater need to be rescued than they were, so those who were able to stay with their heads above water did so. Others were rescued by fire crews, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Society) and although up until today, there has been more rain, the floods seem to have abated.
Pictures on TV have been horrific and as a blind person, I feel that there are times when I am glad not to be able to see such horror and devastation.
We were informed that in a twenty-four hour period, twelve inches of rain fell. And there are hundreds of bridges now in danger of collapse. Because of this, many people are stranded without power and have to go many miles out of their way to get where they want to.
I’m sure you will be able to find news and pics to give you a clearer understanding of what has been happening. Although I live here in the north west of England and it’s very mild for the time of year. Luckily, I’m 30 or 40 miles away from the devastation.
I was alerted to Weatherbrains by my friend Steve who lives in the States.
We are both very interested in how the weather behaves and I’m always commenting to him that his weather is amazing, behaving very badly at times with mean thunder storms and temps which realy do go to extremes.
Our summer has been almost none existent with just two or three weeks of decent weather but occasionally, we do boil in the high nineties or even the low hundreds.
Well, that’s it from me. Really enjoyed your stuff and I’ll look forward to issue 200.
Kind regards, Irene.
