Pic spam to go with The Flood
So here are photos from last night. I took them with my mobile and was in sort of a rush so the quality is not the best.
The river at 8.20pm yesterday, close to washing over the edge and the footpath along it.
The driveway to the underground parking, secured with sand bags, at 9.15 pm. Those bags are heavy, the material of the bags is rough, and combined with the damp and sand they were pretty abrasive to the touch.
10.45 pm. I'd rescued some things from the basement and put my set of winter tyres from the lower level of the basement, which houses the garage, to my basement compartment. The river finally washed over the bridge and flowed away from us, down the road. The area beyond the zebra crossing was flooded so badly that people waded through it thigh-high in water.
At 3 am the fire brigade arrived to pump water out of the neighbour's house and garden. The water level had reached its peak, the water was only about 4 inches away from the barrier of sand bags protecting our driveway.
At 5 am. Our bit of the street with the hose from the neighbour's garden. Imagine a pavement on the far side of the street.
Our driveway, with the extra line of sand bags guiding the water away from the gutter (the line at which the wheelbarrow stands to stop the gate from closing), which leads into the house and an extra gutter there. The indoor gutter was full to overflowing, which I noticed just in time so...
... the boys set up this to drain the gutter in the garage with a pump they'd procured earlier. Draining this gutter made my emptying the other gutter manually (with a bucket) unnecessary. This way, the water system in the house was able to cope with the masses of water and we retained dry feet. Ours is the only building in a 50 metre radius around the bridge whose basement stayed dry. It's due to the fact that our building is only two years old so the basement was constructed watertight. In contrast to other buildings, the ground water did not press into the basement through gaps in the wall.
5.30 am. Water levels were decreasing, even if it doesn't look like it in this picture, although you can see the edge of the pavement.
The river has gone back further in the course of the day. It's still raining lightly, but things brighten up as people start cleaning up. We were unbelievably lucky, and it was a good job some of us didn't just go to bed at one point during the night but changed into dry clothes and had a cuppa before going back out there. I'm sure that if I hadn't spotted the water coming up in the indoor gutter in the room with the washing machines we'd have been in trouble.
The river at 8.20pm yesterday, close to washing over the edge and the footpath along it.
The driveway to the underground parking, secured with sand bags, at 9.15 pm. Those bags are heavy, the material of the bags is rough, and combined with the damp and sand they were pretty abrasive to the touch.
10.45 pm. I'd rescued some things from the basement and put my set of winter tyres from the lower level of the basement, which houses the garage, to my basement compartment. The river finally washed over the bridge and flowed away from us, down the road. The area beyond the zebra crossing was flooded so badly that people waded through it thigh-high in water.
At 3 am the fire brigade arrived to pump water out of the neighbour's house and garden. The water level had reached its peak, the water was only about 4 inches away from the barrier of sand bags protecting our driveway.
At 5 am. Our bit of the street with the hose from the neighbour's garden. Imagine a pavement on the far side of the street.
Our driveway, with the extra line of sand bags guiding the water away from the gutter (the line at which the wheelbarrow stands to stop the gate from closing), which leads into the house and an extra gutter there. The indoor gutter was full to overflowing, which I noticed just in time so...
... the boys set up this to drain the gutter in the garage with a pump they'd procured earlier. Draining this gutter made my emptying the other gutter manually (with a bucket) unnecessary. This way, the water system in the house was able to cope with the masses of water and we retained dry feet. Ours is the only building in a 50 metre radius around the bridge whose basement stayed dry. It's due to the fact that our building is only two years old so the basement was constructed watertight. In contrast to other buildings, the ground water did not press into the basement through gaps in the wall.
5.30 am. Water levels were decreasing, even if it doesn't look like it in this picture, although you can see the edge of the pavement.
The river has gone back further in the course of the day. It's still raining lightly, but things brighten up as people start cleaning up. We were unbelievably lucky, and it was a good job some of us didn't just go to bed at one point during the night but changed into dry clothes and had a cuppa before going back out there. I'm sure that if I hadn't spotted the water coming up in the indoor gutter in the room with the washing machines we'd have been in trouble.