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A Floody Place
Jan. 10th, 2005 11:16 pmI spent a good part of the day gawking at the River Tay. The Perth Flood Prevention Scheme includes walls, dykes and flood gates that went up after the flood of 1993 (they were still working on them in 2000 when we moved here), and which have never been severely tested. When I went down this afternoon with Sara and Mark there were loads of people standing on the railway bridge, gazing at the water rising against the new gates--some of them shut for the first time--everyone exclaiming earnestly, "It WORKS! It WORKS!!!"
One of the gates *didn't* work--the lowest one--and Perth & Kinross Council people were madly working in the dark (it being half past four) with pumps and sandbags to shore it up.
This morning I went for my bi-weekly bicycle ride with a bunch of friends and we went all along the river path north of the city (until we had to turn back, because the path was under water). The path runs along a dyke, and the river was on one side and a flooded golf course on the other side. The freaky thing was that there was about a 10-foot difference in the level of water between the river side and the golf course side; it was much higher on the river side. The river was hurtling by at about 20 mph. You found yourself wondering about the strength of the wall.
One of the gates *didn't* work--the lowest one--and Perth & Kinross Council people were madly working in the dark (it being half past four) with pumps and sandbags to shore it up.
This morning I went for my bi-weekly bicycle ride with a bunch of friends and we went all along the river path north of the city (until we had to turn back, because the path was under water). The path runs along a dyke, and the river was on one side and a flooded golf course on the other side. The freaky thing was that there was about a 10-foot difference in the level of water between the river side and the golf course side; it was much higher on the river side. The river was hurtling by at about 20 mph. You found yourself wondering about the strength of the wall.