Floods

Over the weekend we had floods. On the national news Carlisle, Appleby and Keswick got all the attention, and of course they were badly hit again. But the river flooded at Prudhoe and the Old Station House and the house opposite must have been in five feet of water on Saturday night, and they too were hit

five years ago. Locations on the industrial estate were flooded and the Tyne was eighteen feet higher than normal. Perhaps not the highest ever, but certainly the highest since records have been kept.
The path I often walk with Tim is littered with rubbish which indicates the water would have been well over my head. People were evacuated in Ovingham, on the other side of the Tyne where the Whittle Burn comes down to the river. A horse was trapped in a field and died just after it was eventually rescued. At Corbridge, six miles away, the flood banks were overwhelmed and the new defence wall overtopped.  50 or more people were evacuated from the area around the Dyvels public House. They too suffered the same thing five years ago. Bellingham, Haydon Bridge and other small places suffered too. The suffering is the same, but the numbers are smaller so the tv cameras go where the numbers are highest. But don't think everywhere else got off Scot-free, because they did not.