Thursday, June 14, 2012
The South Terrace, Littlehampton, June floods.
I shall interrupt my story of our walk yesterday at Slaugham to tell of a more unhappy story - unhappy for others.
You will have heard that the Sussex Coast area has suffered floods this week, with many roads closed.
The first we heard of was at Littlehampton and was not caused by the river bursting its banks, but by drains not being able to cope with a month's rainfall in 24 hours.
Houses facing the green which sits behind the beach were hit by this flooding. These houses have been subdivided into flats and of course it was the basement flats which filled with water.
The fire brigade was called during Sunday night.
The fire engines were there all the next day, pumping in the heavy rain.
At first there was no where to pump the water to.
The river is at the end of the street and the sea is a similar distance away, across the green, on the left hand side.
Water being pumped out of one of the flats. In some instances it had reached a depth of about 4 feet.
Obviously we were not in Littlehampton at this time and the above pictures are from newspapers.
Three days later and the pumping system seems to have become a semi permanent system.
This was earlier today.
The basement flats are being cleared of their contents.
It is hard to think of personal belongings being flooded - and this case it wasn't just water, it was drain water - with all that that might contain.
Two sad cuddly toys sit on a box waiting to be destroyed.
Looking down into a basement flat.
And then we got talking.
The man has loved photography. He had masses of them in a huge folder. All were now damaged.
I think that he had taken most of them. He was telling us all about Crete where the photos in his hands were taken.
I begged him to reconsider throwing them away.
But he has been knocked very hard by the events of this week and is very, very down.
He feels very alone.
This photograph was not taken by him.
The photographer has a small reputation and has done photographic books about the place where he has lived.
This photograph shows our man and his brother in a small boat in Emsworth Harbour, where our man grew up.
I surmise that this photo was used in a book and our man has made a copy and enlarged it.
This one shows our man as a fisherman - the one in the hat with a beard. It was 1977.
They had caught some sort of ray which is rare to find off Emsworth.
Please if you are the man in our pictures, I know you will remember chatting to us, and we would love you to get in touch.
Please change your mind, man - these are special pictures.
But he doesn't think life is very special just now.
He said with some humour that he might patent a new board game called "Knock Down". In this game just when you think you are getting somewhere, lady luck will come along and knock you back down.
I guess Snakes and Ladders works on that premise.
I hope these people were well enough insured to go on a shopping trip to re-fill the wardrobe.
But it's not just new clothes they need - more or less new everything.
This is the end of the street. The river is to the left.
The huge pipes now reach along to this point and there are ramps over the pipe for any vehicles.
We are looking down the road to the small parade of shops and cafes, one of which is The Balaton.
The workman is smoothing the ashphalt that has been put down to form the ramp over the pipe.
It doesn't seem like he pipe has reached this point yet.
It does look like a semi permanent system.
I hope my pictures tell the story, in some small way, of what has been happening to some Littlehampton folk this week.
More rain is forecast - quite a lot more rain.
I wonder when it will begin.
It is suggested that it will reach us by early evening - just in time for an Under 13s athletics league match.
We seem to be in for wet evening.
You will have heard that the Sussex Coast area has suffered floods this week, with many roads closed.
The first we heard of was at Littlehampton and was not caused by the river bursting its banks, but by drains not being able to cope with a month's rainfall in 24 hours.
Houses facing the green which sits behind the beach were hit by this flooding. These houses have been subdivided into flats and of course it was the basement flats which filled with water.
The fire brigade was called during Sunday night.
The fire engines were there all the next day, pumping in the heavy rain.
At first there was no where to pump the water to.
The river is at the end of the street and the sea is a similar distance away, across the green, on the left hand side.
Water being pumped out of one of the flats. In some instances it had reached a depth of about 4 feet.
Obviously we were not in Littlehampton at this time and the above pictures are from newspapers.
Three days later and the pumping system seems to have become a semi permanent system.
This was earlier today.
The basement flats are being cleared of their contents.
It is hard to think of personal belongings being flooded - and this case it wasn't just water, it was drain water - with all that that might contain.
Two sad cuddly toys sit on a box waiting to be destroyed.
Looking down into a basement flat.
And then we got talking.
The man has loved photography. He had masses of them in a huge folder. All were now damaged.
I think that he had taken most of them. He was telling us all about Crete where the photos in his hands were taken.
I begged him to reconsider throwing them away.
But he has been knocked very hard by the events of this week and is very, very down.
He feels very alone.
This photograph was not taken by him.
The photographer has a small reputation and has done photographic books about the place where he has lived.
This photograph shows our man and his brother in a small boat in Emsworth Harbour, where our man grew up.
I surmise that this photo was used in a book and our man has made a copy and enlarged it.
This one shows our man as a fisherman - the one in the hat with a beard. It was 1977.
They had caught some sort of ray which is rare to find off Emsworth.
Please if you are the man in our pictures, I know you will remember chatting to us, and we would love you to get in touch.
Please change your mind, man - these are special pictures.
But he doesn't think life is very special just now.
He said with some humour that he might patent a new board game called "Knock Down". In this game just when you think you are getting somewhere, lady luck will come along and knock you back down.
I guess Snakes and Ladders works on that premise.
I hope these people were well enough insured to go on a shopping trip to re-fill the wardrobe.
But it's not just new clothes they need - more or less new everything.
The huge pipes now reach along to this point and there are ramps over the pipe for any vehicles.
We are looking down the road to the small parade of shops and cafes, one of which is The Balaton.
The workman is smoothing the ashphalt that has been put down to form the ramp over the pipe.
It doesn't seem like he pipe has reached this point yet.
It does look like a semi permanent system.
I hope my pictures tell the story, in some small way, of what has been happening to some Littlehampton folk this week.
More rain is forecast - quite a lot more rain.
I wonder when it will begin.
It is suggested that it will reach us by early evening - just in time for an Under 13s athletics league match.
We seem to be in for wet evening.
