Flood Watch again

Gavi

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Sitting here in a very wet Oxfordshire...

Thames flood watch

The M4 was bad this morning and I felt I'd be better off staying in bed. Mind you, I often feel like that at 6am...
 
I have a vacant berth at Thames and Kennet at the moment, it's on floating pontoons, so floodproof.

If anybody needs to use it in an emergency, please PM me for the number.
 
It's over our moorings now and still rising. I ventured a school run down on DooMore this morning, took 3 mins to get there and 15 minutes to get back! Had to wade to the boat in wellies and carry the eldest as she wouldn't be seen dead in them!!

Most worrying is the fact that a sunk 14' cuddy boat tied to a house just downstream of us has now disappeared. No answer from Chertsey Lock to warn him.
 
Obviously a pain, and you have, to the best of your ability, to look after your property and your neighbours, but I kind of expect that in winter. What was depressing was being on alert in July!

R
 
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Most worrying is the fact that a sunk 14' cuddy boat tied to a house just downstream of us has now disappeared. No answer from Chertsey Lock to warn him.

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Chertsey Lock is unmanned today and tomorrow ( Tue and Wed ) , there will be someone covering the weirs, try the Nav office at Shepperton , they will be able to advise which lock is manned and covering Chertsey's weir ....

Sorry to hear of your neighbours loss /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif is it possible he may have slipped it ?
 
Indeed! I am not particularly worried now I've experienced July... Shikara is safely on risers and I've got waders, but I wouldn't have wanted to do Doolittle's school run this morning /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Alas, it was only a matter of time /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Doolittle falls in the river, whilst in flood, in the dark without his lifejacket /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Managed to collect the younger ones from Laleham Wharf at 3:45 yesterday without any drama. The eldest arrived across the river at 4:45 once it was dark. Complete with headtorch, I waded out to DooMore and crossed the river and moored tight to a wooden jetty just upstream opposite us. This jetty was under 4 or 5" of water so I paddled along it and got the eldests photography coursework folder and returned to put it in the boat but then I found the gap between bank and jetty! Fortunately I managed to keep most off the folder out of the water much to my daughters relief! So that's it, no more school runs now until it subsides again. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

So had to drive round to get the school bus this morning and look what's fetched up on Chertsey weir... Danny Boy:

IMAG0013.jpg
 
It was restarted and driven away by Steve from Penton Chandlers, that afternoon. Just getting onto it from another boat in that weir stream must have been a serious undertaking!

Folks may have seen Frog 3 a little 17' cuddy boat that that had sunk during the summer just below the water intake on the south side? Well that has broken from its tether now and is making a stately progress down the river and is presently 50' upstream of all the trad boats moored at Dennetts. Falkenbrook, the EA tug is just sorting out a boat on Bell Weir and is scheduled to sort this one on their return. I'm intrigued to see how they deal with it.
 
I didn't mean great as in 'great that the boat is on the weir '

Just that it illustrates how powerful the river is at present ....

I don't have a boat , i'm just a lowly servant /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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Obviously a pain, and you have, to the best of your ability, to look after your property and your neighbours, but I kind of expect that in winter. What was depressing was being on alert in July!

R

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I agree about July, but the river is now taking over my lawn, which it did not back then.

I agree it is all part of living here, but I thought others would be interested in knowing that Church Island is sinking. I am now interested in seeing if my flood defences work /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Levels are certainly higher at our marina than it was in July, one of the pontoons in the marina is under water, and water lapping at the bottom of ours. With the rain forecast I certainly can't see it dropping for a while /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
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Levels are certainly higher at our marina than it was in July, one of the pontoons in the marina is under water, and water lapping at the bottom of ours. With the rain forecast I certainly can't see it dropping for a while /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

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Levels here are still a foot or so below July
 
Reading everyone's reports it is interesting to see the difference between the summer and now.

The lower reaches are suffering more now presumably because the river is doing its job and taking the rainwater downstream. Water that has appeared from continual normal rain.
In the summer it seemed that the deluge of really heavy rain was just too much and it all hung around upstream and slowly dispersed downstream to cause lesser problems down there.
 
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