Risk of disease.

[Kaz]

Monday is the expected highest point, if the Thames 'goes' then - as has been put to my ex as a possibility by a Bod In The Know he was talking to, but thankfully not a probability - the whole of Egham will be flooded - houses, businesses, fields the lot

Milliband is a disaster. We know exactly what he doesn't stand for - ie anything the Tories say or do - but just what he does stand for is a mystery. He is a total non-entity, with the leadership qualities of a stuffed poodle Oh and why his mother didn't have his adenoids 'done' as a child I will never know!

[KateLMead]

Ah well as one. As one would say.....
"Nil Illegitimi Carborundum"

[Kaz]

Absolutely!!!!

[moondancer]

Where exactly would they pump the water to? If the rivers are bursting their banks and flooding the surrounding area, then what do you do with all the excess water. You can't pump it back into the river can you?

I'm not being sarcastic here - I genuinely do wonder where they are expected to remove the water to.

That's exactly what puzzles me too.

If one house pumps water away, won't it all go to the next house and from there have a domino effect ?

It can't go back into the rivers because they're all overflowing anyway.

[TheOstrich]

I think, on one level, they are using pumps to divert water into different channels and rivers so it returns to the sea faster ...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... nel-floods

... and on a much more localised level, if you have a flood barrier round or alongside your house, and water is getting inside it or coming up from the ground, you can pump it back over the barrier into the main-stream flood (think of it as bailing out a dingy). It's to stop the flood waters rising in your house/land to the same level as the flood waters outside your barrier, and thus hopefully minimising the damage in your ground floor / basement. It's what some folk living by the side of the rivers Severn and Thames have been doing.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ho ... 31644.aspx is an informative read, with a lot of cautions about using pumps ....

[Workingman]

The first inch of water in a flood is the one that does the most damage. It gets into the foundations, the joists, the floorboards and laminates and carpets; and due to capillary action it will rise up the walls until gravity takes over.

If that first inch is groundwater and has reached the level of the surrounding groundwater, then pumping it out is a waste of time, money, fuel and effort.

If the water has broken through household defences then the breach has to be found and repaired at the same time as the pumping is taking place. Water is so corrosive, as far as loose barriers are concerned, that the pump and repair process could need to happen untill the waters subside.

As I remember it an explanation for the pumps at Burrowbridge was that are helping to drain the levels lying below the level of the river itself and at a point where it can flow away. They appear to be struggling because they do not have the capacity.

[meriad]

A colleague and I were talking about the Thames today - I walk over Hungerford Bridge on a daily basis and I can see the Thames from my office window. And at no point have we had a very high water level and when its low tide it's still really quite low...

Why can whoever it is in charge not - when the tide starts receding in the tidal part of the Thames - open some of the locks so water can start running down into the emptying river and run into the Channel?

[Kaz]

Good question Ria!

[Workingman]

Why can whoever it is in charge not - when the tide starts receding in the tidal part of the Thames - open some of the locks so water can start running down into the emptying river and run into the Channel?

Bloody good question! Teddington is the tidal lock and it is only a few km from Egham, Chertsey etc. There must be a reason, but it escapes me.

[Diflower]

Sounds good to me - don't we have any residential lock/tidal experts?