25th June 2007 - Flooding and traveling

Today has been the wettest that I have known in the UK. I got up at about 9AM greeted by the sound of terrential rain on my bedroom window...which didn't let up until 9PM that evening and had already been going strong since yesterday morning. I didn't venture from the house very much however at about midday I had to walk round to Rodillian to hand in some forms about getting payed for the summer school. I wore my water proof parker style coat which got soaked along with the jeans that i was wearing. I got home and got changed ready to go over to Garforth, not yet knowing the extend of the impact that the heavy rain was having on my local area.

John picked me up at 2PM with the intention of getting to Garforth for 2:25 having stopped to pick up food at Greggs in Rothwell. This would would ordinarily be more than enought time however today the weather was against us. We set off in the heavy rain, I was wearing my only water proof coat that i had other than my sodden parker, which was my high vis coat. John decided to take me on a tour of some of the large puddles that were collecting but little did we know these were meagre tasters to the puddle which we would encounter later.

We stopped at the bottom of Stye Bank Lane and have a look at the area next to the beck in Rothwell (Springhead) Park which were all under several inches of water, the paths of the gardens being turned into reasonably fast flowing streams, the beck had well and truley burst it's banks and was on it's way to some close by houses. We set off to get to the community college coming accross a few fords accross the roads which were usually under a foot deep however then we came to a police diverstion nearing the roundabout at the bottom of Garforth we followed the country lane the police were sending us and a whole line of other traffic and then came out on to a road covered in just under a foot of water, with alot of this water extedning into the gardens of houses and round the buildings themselves, some must have recieved flood damage. We then followed the road but came to another police block on a road leading to the earlier mentioned round about, a large puddle could be seen behind the police car. We ended up taking the decision to take the M1 and then get to the M1 junctino at the top of Garforth. The M1 was alright other than alot of mist thrown up by the vehciles.

We got off the motorway at the junction and came accross a long line of traffic trying to get from the roundabout into Garforth down a road that was obviously flooded with what appeared to be a police car partcially blocking the road. We decided to try and find a way round the blockage using our combined knowledge of the area however didn't succed and ended up joining the que which we had earlier seen. We stuck it out in the que and once in sight could see the emergency response vehicle which I had assumed to be a police car was actually a ambulance response unit. A paramedic was there controlling the traffic allowing a single line of traffic down the middle of the road at once, at the shallowest point. He grabbed onto the wing mirror of a truck and stood on one of the steps up into the cab to get over the lake and then did the same to get back, was quick amazing actually. That puddle was about 3ft deep and was taking some of the cars that crossed it as prisoners with a few cars lined up at the side of the road victims of the water.

We got through that road the drove reasonably unabated into Garforth. On one corner near to the police station there was a very large puddle which was about 2ft deep on average. We couldn't avoid splashing some of the pedestrians, one girl from the college we saw again later back in the building soaked to the bone, we didn't do it I can assure you.

We arrived at Garforth to discover the playground where the open air concert is going to be held in about two weeks time under three feet of water, not a good sign as this is the second time in two weeks that it has flooded. We got though the still terrential rain and into the building where we bumped into Stu. He told us that we couldn't do the rigging that we wanted to as the building was flooded and that nothing electrical other than the lights in the seemingly uneffected areas could be used. We discovered that the music centre had been flooded and some equipment damaged. Luckily teachers and students had started to save equipment as soon as the flooding started. Most of the GCAS gear was safe barring a few stands and the Mackie SRM350's.

Unable to do anything else we went for a walk around the building to see what the damage was to the music centre, to see how deep the water in the playground was and to see how the astro turf pitches were holding up - as they would be a prime alternative for the concert. John and I got very very wet although my high vis waterproof held up very well...my jeans and hair were wet. We decided to see what the situation was like with regards to getting home and to our suprise the half of the round about we required was now open. Half of it was under 3ft of water. A fire engine drove into the puddle however it was deeper than they must have expected as the water level on the truck soon got reasonably high.

We drove home the normal way but turned off when we came up to some traffic and decided to try and get round it by going over castleford way however on doing so we went down a street which after a few miles turned into the worst flooding we had seen all day. The water was about 3ft deep but covered a large area and had fouled many houses. Once thought this we came to a road where a left turn would have taken us back to the M1 round about with the traffic problems we had experience earlier so turned right (there was a straigh ahead but we didn't know where it went and it was barricaded and closed off anyway. After about half a mile we came accross Police road blocks across both the main street and a side street due to flooding. In the distance the flooding could be seen judging by the size of it compaired to the Fire Engine that was next to it it was about 100m long and I don't know how deep! We pulled a U-turn and drove back the way we came and just had to join the traffic and wait. The traffic was being caused by an puddle we had crossed earlier, only now it was slightly larger, still much smaller than the big puddles we had forded during the day. Once through that we got to Johns house without much more going on.

We spent a short time at Johns house then set off to get me home. We went the normal route that took us out of ROthwell near the fire station and then to the Halfway House. We got to the turn off for Carlton about 300m further on from the Fire Station and saw that the road was impassible. The water, which had just been a large puddle earlier, was now a full flood. The water was abuot 3foot deep judging by the level on the lamp post. We dare not enter which not knowing the extend of the flooding. We turned back and decided to go home via the Jawbones but experienced heavy traffic. We decided to go down to the roundabout near the park go across to the sports centre then home past the M62 roundabout however the roundabout at the park was very very busy we decided to try our look at Royds lane, turned around and went down there. There was a road closed sign but it was for a very small puddle in comparison with what we had seen earlier so just drove on and got to the main road where we turned left, went straight across the roundabout then worked our way to my house where I swiftly retreated to my room after a day, seemingly, on the road.

All in all it too about 1.5hours to do a 15min journey (Rothwell to Garforth) and then about double/triple the time it should for the other two. Was insane. I practically finished up the day watching footage of people being airlifted by the RAF to safety from roof tops in an area of Sheffield that had been badly effected. It has been a bit of a crazy day all in all. Currently there are people held up in office blocks and factories all over parts of sheffield awaiting rescue by boat or helicopter as well as about 100 people stranded in Meadowhall as everywhere around the building, including the ground floor, is flooded.

I found it amazing how vunerable the road network in my local area was to flooding. While today was a very odd occurance it is supposedly going to be happening more often thanks to global warming. We can't let it have that effect every time this kind of rainfall happens. At the moment I'm thinking abuot the people in Sheffield but am also concerned about the concert at the Garforth Arts Festival....would be the end of the festival if we had to cancel it.