It was raining very badly when I cycled home from work tonight. Out of my three-mile journey, I had several inches of water on the ground for over 2 miles. The roads were covered with water, literally. When I got to the Offchurch bridge, the rain was torrential and visibility very very low, less than 20 yards and the rain was turning into hail. There was about a foot deep of water before and after the bridge. On the uphill after the river, pebbles and gravels were washed away by torrents of water which were hard to negotiate on a bicycle. I almost fell off my bike a couple of times because of branches or pebbles. Water was everywhere, even on the tops of the hills... Down at the canal bridge was pretty bad too. One of the lanes was closed in Radford Semele, I think because on the sewage covers had been forced by the water and was sticking out of the road.
When I got home, water had started gathering around the house, which was worrying. The shed was leaking from everywhere. 15 minutes later, the water was a couple of inches from our front door, and the street, higher than our house, was completely flooded and THAT was very worrying too. If the water started to come off the street into our driveway... we would be flooded for sure. It rained more and more.
We took all we could upstairs: tables, chairs, rugs, mats, plants, chest of drawers...The rear garden was half flooded, all the neighbours gardens, front and rear, were flooded. The inside of our house was dry. But this shows how it was outside our front door.
When the rain eased off, we went out to check out if the neighbours were OK. The next 3 houses on both sides had been flooded, living room and/or utility room. People were throwing buckets of water onto the street. Some houses' electrics got cut off... Most places dried off pretty quickly. Within an hour after the rain stopped, and with the help of heavy-duty brooms, we had cleared the driveway and the garden was not a massive puddle any more.
I was terrified at seeing this quantity of water waving through our glassed front door. I hope it does not rain overnight...
WE ARE SO LUCKY. I cannot believe how lucky we are...
Apparently, people have been asking the council to put drains along the road for years, which has not been done. Given that 80% of the houses in this street are council-houses, they should really do something about it, and quick.
A neighbour told me he had never seen this before. And he has been living here for 15 years. We have been in this house for less than 10 weeks so it is kind of scary...
To leave on a positive note, we got to meet and introduce ourselves to neighbours we had not met before, which is nice.
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