by Lea Nich

Created on: June 30, 2009

I live four hundred metres from a river. I know because I've measured it. I borrowed a trundle wheel from a teacher friend and set about measuring the distance from the river that runs through my hometown, found at one end of my street, and my front door found at the other.

We'd never really considered the possibility of the river bursting its banks and flooding our home. Four hundred metres seemed like a long distance for the river to travel and there'd never been anything like that happen before during my lifetime. Sure, my Dad would tell stories of the time he was at school in the sixties and had to be rescued by boat because the water had gotten too deep but that was over forty years ago and they'd built an 8ft flood wall to protect the surrounding houses as a direct result. To cause my house any damage the river would have to rise above an 8ft wall and travel four hundred metres, there was no way that was going to happen.

It had rained all through the night and all through the morning, though it had been raining earlier on it was beginning to easy off. It still continued on and with no signs of stopping. The sky was a dull, murky grey, thick with rain clouds. It got to a little after 1pm when My Mother and I decided that we may as well go out shopping, we'd miss most of the day if we hung about inside waiting for a break in the rain. I remember walking down the street and commenting on the number of people milling about at the end of the road. There were only about 6 or 7 but it was quite unusual to find on a wet day in September. As we drew nearer it became clear that they were all standing there watching something. A giant puddle cutting us off from the rest of the town. Our little gathering of houses has a single road that allows us in and out and now it was full of water. "You're not going anywhere girls." An older gentleman called out to us, I imagined they'd all set out with the same idea and had all been met with the same obstacle.

That small road was prone to filling up with water during rainy days but the local council had just spent an awful lot of money improving the drainage system, residents hadn't complained about the road works and lack of access because it was understood that the benefits far outweighed the temporary inconveniences. "Money well spent eh" I heard the older gentleman call out again. The new improvements hadn't been designed to withstand so much water in so little time, it never stood a chance of coping.

We hung around

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>