Sunday 1 November 2009

All that rain . . .


As I mentioned earlier, we had a bit of rain here overight. Here are some photos of the river taken AFTER it had subsided a few feet. Before dawn it had been busy-bodying across our lane and the one the other side of the bridge, depositing mud and heaps of leaves in its wake. As we reached the first bend at the bottom of our hill, we saw a dead cow hurtle past, on its side and with its head sometimes flung up by the waves. It won't stop until it floats out into Carmarthen Bay or fetches up on the beach at Llansteffan . . .

K and I decided to walk up as far as the gates to the Big House to see just how high it was further down, where the river narrows and goes through a rocky canyon. Huge boulders I normally stand on to take scenic pictures were completely under water and the coffee-coloured water was hurling itself downstream, almost up to the top of the banks. It can't have seemed too threatening though as our neighbours living on the river bank hadn't moved their car to higher ground.

Masses of debris was being carried downstream - sticks, branches, and a biggish tree stuck against the middle support of our bridge, which is something which happens regularly when we have heavy rain. Not a good day for Pooh Sticks unless you can run very fast from one side of the bridge to the other . . .
View from the bridge - as you can see, it is close to invading our neighbour's garden.

This is how it gets out onto the lane, as well as coming up through the drains . . . It's quite intimidating driving along beside the river when it is this high.

Trees along the river edge are now several feet deep in flood water.


. . . and how the river usually looks.





Whirlpools formed and moved as we watched.

Huge boulders now under water.


There'll be plenty more photos like this over the winter I suspect . . .

8 comments:

  1. wow! fabulous photos BB!I get the eeby jeebies with gardens that go to the water like your neighbours,it makes me shudder to have solid ground one step then next deep water argg!

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  2. So powerful and scary. My friend at Efailwen said her lane was like a river and her hens took to the trees!

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  3. A formidable flood! The bit about the dead cow sounds especially gruesome.
    Sunshine here for a change. I've been out dragging away limbs and branches downed in our snow and wind of early October; a Flicker sat above me jeering until I tried to take his picture.

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  4. wow! Great photos.
    That flood water is very scary. One reason we like living at the top of a hill!!

    ren

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  5. I finally remember to re-bookmark your new blog and am back in touch. My mom lives on the Rogue River in Oregon and scenes like this are familiar, especially like the before and after shots to show the difference.

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  6. Wow ..your photos say it all ...the power of water is scarey.

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  7. The power of that water was tremendous and the speed it rushes by at . . . I will put up a seperate photo of the bridge if I can find it. The year before we moved here, there were lots of trees which fetched up against the bridge and the resulting water went up OVER the bridge and flooded the houses either side to a depth of abaout 4 feet . . .

    Even since we've been here someone was nearly drowned after driving into the river when it was up over the road. She had a 4x4 and thought she was beyond any problems. . . until the car began to float and turned round and started heading downstream . . . She flung herself out and managed to scramble up the bank and through the hedgerow, but it was a close-run thing . . .

    Teri - great to see you back.

    Ren - we live at the top of a hill too, and half way up an even steeper one!

    Kath - Efailwen would have got it before us, being that much closer to Ireland! Being by the first bit of higher land too (the Preselis) they were floating before we were . . .

    GTM - it was my neighbour's properties that got flooded that time . . .

    MM - well, I can't match your snow, so I ordered the rain and floods instead : )

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  8. We have rivers here in the Yorkshire Dales that rise very quickly and flood easily. The only good thing is that they go down just as quickly. Your photographs show the floodwater well.

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