daniel robert chapman wrote:

BadComrade wrote:It rained really hard an hour ago. The street I work on was totally under water. My car was parked on this street, with water about 1/16th of and inch from the bottom of my doors. I had to go out in the torrential rain, walk down the sidewalk (which was also totally under water), to my car, jump in, then drive around until I could find a parallel parking space on a side street somewhere that wasn't already under water. Once I did this, I had to walk through the torrential rain, navigating a path around all the flooding, and back to work, where I stand wearing soaking wet leather shoes, no socks, and a still damp shirt.

God damn.

Leeds, yesterday:

Not my photo. Not my car, either, thank fuck.

Yeah, I had no idea til this afternoon how mad the rain's been. I mean, I knew it rained all day yesterday and most of the days before and thundered and lightninged and got me all wet a few times and the beck was overflowing, but only today did I hear that four people up to now are dead and Sheffield has closed. There was a tornado in Guisborough (ancient capital of Cleveland) yesterday. It's a little bit more than the usual 'typical British summer' rain. A news reporter was in a man's house looking out of the window saying "...and this was your garden..."; he just nodded as they looked at the fast flowing river by the window. Some folks are dead.

To perhaps throw a towel to our water-bound friend in the photo here, there is an earlier photo on Flickr showing where the water was when they tried to drive through:



Actually that's still pretty dumb.

Leeds got off lightly compared to Sheffield, where people had to be airlifted out of the city centre, and two people were swept away and died. It was an interesting day at work, as we ground to a halt and turned the radio on. People were allowed to leave early and head for home, and phoned back in from various points around the city with condition reports. That blitz spirit was in effect, as it always when the British are beset with showery rain, or maybe a slightly-too-hot day (it doesn't take much to produce a crisis, here).

I found this photo on Flickr, of Lady Beck near Buslingthorpe Lane:


Here it is a couple of years ago, when me and some friends navigated it (and the tunnels it runs through under the city centre), around the same place:



(If you want to see our sewer crawling activities from that day, have a look on Flickr here.)

Up where my mom lives, people have drowned when they tried to drive through flooded roads and got stuck under the overpass.

It hasn't happened in a few years, but it's happened enough that there are now super industrial drains there.

John C3 wrote:Some folks are dead.

I was turned over when I heard about the chap who died in Hull, whose foot became trapped in a drain in neck-high waters. Firefighters spent three hours trying to free him, but the waters rose first. That terrifies me, and is why I prefer to look at this as a lightweight weather story than dwell too much on such an awful fate.

And I freely admit that searching on Flickr for photos of my home town underwater is a diverting pastime for a local history/architecture vulture like me. I grew up in Otley in Yorkshire, and my favourite book (which I can't find anywhere second hand) was a history of the town with lots of great photos of flood waters from the Wharfe and the like. I guess I've never lost that fascination with pictures of streets turned into rivers.

The idea that the dam at Ulley Reservoir could burst is also incredible to me.

I decided not to drive to Cheshire to visit my mum on her birthday tonight, because the forecast was for more heavy rain, but it's been quite a gorgeous calm evening, with dark clouds lit in good ways by the evening sun. Blessings counted, etc.

daniel robert chapman wrote:

John C3 wrote:Some folks are dead.

I was turned over when I heard about the chap who died in Hull, whose foot became trapped in a drain in neck-high waters. Firefighters spent three hours trying to free him, but the waters rose first. That terrifies me, and is why I prefer to look at this as a lightweight weather story than dwell too much on such an awful fate.

Maybe I don't know much about emergency rescue, but couldn't they have just given him a tube to breathe through when the waters rose, so they could carry on trying to set him free?

Sock OR Muffin? wrote:

Marsupialized wrote: maybe I'll just push her into a jet engine

You won't!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_gpPbpONK4

you should see the big book of on field airport injuries, they show it us you when you get a job working around planes.
I've seen way more disturbing sucked into engine videos and pictures as well. Perk of the job.

alandeus wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:maybe I'll just push her into a jet engine

You should talk her into participating in some sort of food-eating contest with your wife and whoever loses has to have their head shaved. I'm just spitballing here....

my wife would mop the floor with this lumbering land manatee I work with

A two-page letter from a person who doesn't know the difference between 'were' and 'where', dealing almost exclusively with things that have happened in the past.

daniel robert chapman wrote:A two-page letter from a person who doesn't know the difference between 'were' and 'where', dealing almost exclusively with things that have happened in the past.

Oy vey, Batman!

BadComrade wrote:Only because you pinch them so often they're constantly swollen.

I feel your pain, brother.

I received my final year results from university. Got a 2:1.

I happy that I passed, but frustrated because I know I could've done better. Still, it feels SO good to know that I don't have to go back to uni again.