Flooding in Carmarthenshire

If you live in the UK (and especially in Wales) then you will have seen television footage of the dreadful flooding in Wales.  Of course, we were not immune in our community.  This is the bridge a the bottom of our hill.  Photo taken this morning, by which time the river had dropped TEN FEET overnight.  Our neighbour down here had flooding in his cottage and nearly in his bungalow too.  I bet he didn't get much sleep last night.  

Storm Callum - this link will show you a report on the flooding further downstream and Storm Callum II at Carmarthen. Hopefully they are differeing reports!  

As you can see, there was a log jam of trees against the bridge and it is no longer usable.  We will have to wait weeks for the Council to come and clear this, and check that the bridge is OK as someone was saying it was moving yesterday, with the weight of water against it, through it, over it . . .

Unfortunately we chose to go out yesterday morning and got caught up in all this when we came to try and get home, and every road to cross the river was blocked.  We tried to get home on the back road to Carmarthen after finding our usual route along Station Road under water . . .  Carmarthen road also under water.  Turning around and driving in the opposite direction, all crossings over the Towy under water and then the Llandeilo road ditto.  We had to drive up to Carmel and to Llandeilo that way, managing to cross on the Ffairfach bridge, but on the A40 home, a council vehicle blocked the road and we were told the A40 was blocked at our nearest village to home - bridge crosses the Cothi . . .

We tried every which way, finding the lanes with standing water nearly a foot deep in places (no good when your exhaust stands at 9"!) and eventually every route home was blocked.  We ended up the other side of our bridge (having had to turn around on the lane to Brechfa) with neighbours, surveying the flood water hurtling through and over the bridge, with a worried neighbour the other side who already had one property flooded and was stacking up furniture in his bungalow . . .

We had offers of a bed overnight, but as I had left my asthma inhalers at home, we HAD to get back.  Fortunately one neighbour was able to tell us that the A40 was actually still passable at Pontargothi and so we were able to get home along there and then "over the top."  Believe me I have NEVER been so glad to get home in all my life. . . 

This stretch of the lane is often welly-deep in standing water, and my dear husband suggested he could wade through to go and get my inhalers, in case we really couldn't get back.  However, yesterday it was a whole different ball game and the river had breached it here and it was 5 feet deep (as you can see from the debris caught in the hedge).

More debris caught up in the fencing.

The river this morning - remember - levels have dropped 10 feet overnight.   I wish I'd had the camera with me yesterday but that said, I just wanted us  to get home safely - rather than take photos of our predicament!  I feel so sorry for the people who have lost vehicles and had homes flooded from this storm.