Complete carnage can be the only way to describe today's rain and subsequent flooding affecting Barry and the South of the UK on a day I had to travel that way.
The UK's crappiest ever summer, almost continual rain and grey skies since the end of April, reached a new low. There were advance storm warnings and quotes of a month's worth of rain in a day but we got more than that - 5 inches in 12 hours when July's average is about 4 inches - which caused havoc. The rain was biblical, I thought I saw Noah a couple of times, and its impacts were jaw-dropping.
Barry saw water popping up manholes everywhere from mid-morning and flooding on an unprecedented scale with schools evacuated as flood waters poured in, including Jessica's, people rescued by boats from offices whilst Babs saw one car float down the road on water and two others attended by fire services trying to release occupants inside flooded cards. Even the "top road" was flooding, my dad's house on Port Road having a river running down the drive and putting the garden under several inches of water. Barry became a mini Venice for a short time and with the fairground in a sad state but apparently opening over summer, it was the first water seen by the log flume all year.
This, on all days, when we were heading to Matt Gabb's wedding just south of Oxford. It was a journey expected to take a little over 2 hours from Barry, it took Babs that long to get out of Barry! Meeting me at just after 2 at my Newport office, we had visions of being checked into hotel at 4pm - if only!
The remainder of the journey took over 7 hours with M4 looking more like lake than road in parts and, with water coming up through the road, tarmac was being lifted and left it looking like a football pitch with divots, traffic bumper to bumper, a landslide causing havoc around Newbury and, the final insult, the A34 was closed sending all traffic down our exit road making the final 3 miles of the trip take over 3 hours to achieve.
It left us arriving at the hotel after 9pm, the wedding at 10pm, missing the buffet and only time for a couple of drinks before its midnight closing. Fortunately, we did have a couple of drinks with bride and groom back at the hotel and the journey back was less eventful but reading of thousands who were forced to sleep in cars on motorways, others who lost their cars or had their homes near-destroyed, we can feel we came off luckier than most.
Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Matt Gabb. At least their wedding went off better than another at the the hotel where the bride arrived 3 and a hlaf hours late due to the traffic chaos and I've no idea how they got on for food as the planned garden setting and bbq was destroyed by the weather!
Links to stories about the great rain:
Barry and South Wales Floods: http://tinyurl.com/2wb78u
BBC video news story showing floods in Barry: http://tinyurl.com/3xx3e6
UK (south in particular): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6910438.stm
Pictures of floods in the South: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6909198.stm
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