I'm watching with some interest the flooding which is affecting large parts of the uk. I also see the local half watts (there called that because they are very dim or not very bright) pulling faces, waving, pretending they ate on there phones etc.

My question is this how long before someone decides its a good idea to turn it into a terrorist incident! Its waiting to happen and you heard it here first. Very worrying

pretending they ate on there phones

What on earth is this supposed to mean? And, BTW, 'their' is the possessive adjective, not 'there', so there!

And, please stop calling people whose history you know nothing about, half-wits.

Sorry you couldn't work it out. Ate = are bit difficult typing on a mobile with my big digits.

As for there, their I'm educated in the school of life so no qualifications here

Nothing to see here # move on!

I was counting flooded houses on the levels, there were about forty, all recent builds.
Older houses, while having their feet wet, are obviously built to take flooding into account.
Damn the Developers!!

while spending many holidays in somerset, we came across historical info that mentioned certain parts of the levels could only be accessed by boat in winter, I forget who or when but drains were constructed and water never got to the levels it has recently..
our last visit some time ago now, we walked up Brean Down, Brent Knoll, Crooks Peak, Glastonbury Tor and Burrow Mump so the info may of been on one of the tourist boards
its very sad to see all these people suffering,

Is it 'Damn the Developers' or 'Damn the Local Authorities' who agreed Planning Permission?

Mind wasn't it in Prescott's time that bribing Local Authorities became legal, with a developer being required to cough up funds for Community Projects?

Then of course if Planning is refused the Developer appeals and maybe seeks Judicial Review or whatever and the Local Authority give in because they can't afford the legal fight. It's dog eat dog out there.

In the Middle Ages the levels were totally waterlogged all the time and Glastonbury was an island.

When the Somerset & Dorset Railway was started (as the Somerset Central Railway) in the 1850s it ran from Highbridge, near the coast, to Glastonbury and was described as 'going from nowhere to nowhere over a turf moor'.

Between 1785 and 1795 17,000 acres were drained and enclosed, but 9,000 acres of undrained turf bog remained.

'Nothing could alter the contours, and large stretches of moor are still liable to flooding after heavy winter rain. .......Glastonbury Station, (near B&Q & Tesco these days) fourteen miles inland, is barely 20 feet above sea-level. ....... in the medieval period the monks of Glastonbury had moved about their estates by water.' The Somerset & Dorset Railway by Robert Atthill pub. 1967

Thank you Andy for that elucidating piece of history. So good to read properly as to how the current sitution has been arrived at, particularly as it contained no histrionics at all.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert...erset-flooding/

This is a good read about the causes of flooding and how to alleviate it.

Did anyone else see the moronic behaviour on Sky news at 6 ladt night, it caused the "live" reporting from Dachet to be suspended!

The levels inhabitants were called "The Summer People" (Hence the county name Somerset)
because there were only the summer months when the land was dry enough and could be worked

Dredging will do little in the case of land below sea level, unless someone know how to make billions if gallons flow uphill

the info was about Burrow Mump while looking for something else found the leaflet,
the area was flooded so they decided to divert river clary into what is now king sedgemoor drain (it was built for this reason), this wasn't the fix but did help to relieve the floods, there was problems with kings sedgemoor drain silting up. another fix was required but nothing has been done according to the leaflet.
the dredge may help in the short term, but perhaps further investigation is needed..

Interesting reporting with regard to the house collapsing into the sink hole in Ripon a few days ago, when switched on telly it was still stood on the live report, but on internet Ripon paper, was collapsed.. very lucky dog..

We lived near Ripon between '93 and '09 and I remember when the back garden of a house opened up and fell into a sinkhole in the same area as this recent episode. It must have been around the turn of the century.