h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today, Sheffield has seen its worst flooding in well over a century.

By coincidence, I was alongside the Don about 4 hours before it burst its banks. I was in an industrial paintshop on Mowbray Street, straight across the water from Kelham Island Museum. The proprietor opened a shutter door onto the river and we watched it hurtling past, six feet higher than usual.

I think his premises will probably have been flooded (and so, I fear, will the Engine hall opposite). I hope the wrought steel bench we left for painting is out of harm's way, because a lot of work's gone into it. People have said that galvanising was unnecessarily cautious, but it certainly seems like a good move now.

I work about a mile from Brightside Lane, the area that's getting the blanket TV treatment. The first half mile of the homeward drive this evening took me an hour. There's water everywhere on the east side of town, spraying out from under drain covers. Fortunately my home's off to the south of the centre, set high and in the area which seems to be least afflicted by the flooding.

It's strange seeing places you know very well on the news, and even stranger seeing them with a torrent that shouldn't be there flowing through. It's surreal seeing the footage of Lady's Bridge, with the water lapping at the parapet. That's the scene that Harrison described in 1864 and that I tried to imagine for the Gunson piece, now played out for real.

This is going to cost millions to sort. There's a lot of very special manufacturing assets in the Lower Don Valley, and a fair proportion will have been damaged today.

For now, though, all we can do is gaze in disbelief.

I'm very sorry to hear this, Pin. I hope there isn't too much damage and that everyone stays safe.

Thanks Hyp.

Two fatalities in the city, which is sad but also a testament to the emergency response.

It's all going to take a lot of sorting out, though. It could be months before stuff like public transport is back to normal, and there must be a lot of jobs at risk.

When I was watching the TV footage last night I thought of Gunson but then this morning hearing about the dam they think could break at Ulley, even more so. It shouldn't be possible these days, though googling tells me Ulley dates from within ten years of Gunson's dam.

It must be sheer chaos in and around Sheffield right now. People and their livelihoods need to come first but I hope the River Don Engine's ok too.

The Engine must have been underwater, and possibly still is.

I'm only going by the photos of adjacent streets. All phone lines are down into the area, and trying to get close would be irresponsible.

I'm going to have to try get round there tomorrow, though, justifiably to recover the bench, but sentimentally to see the state of the museum.

The scale of the cleaning and recovery means it'll take a while just to get the manpower even.

Is the bench work related?

Yeah.
It's a retirement present for our former MD. It's made by the same blacksmith who did the tree, and the tree was actually inspired by an earlier version of the bench, which is formed out of oak boughs and is based on an original by Diego Giacometti.
That makes no sense at all, does it? I'll e-mail you a picture of it as finished in steel.
We have to present the thing next Wednesday evening. Assuming it hasn't been swept away all together, there's just the small problem of it being stuck unpainted in a flooded workshop that nobody can get to, quite possibly having incurred damage.
Still, look on the bright side. Dead lucky we didn't leave the cushions. And we've still got eight days; all the time in the world really...

Not an hour ago my boss phoned, on his way home from a trip abroad, and with realisation just dawning of the severity of the floods. I told him about the bench and the Engine. He was fairly upset about both.

Is there something in the UK similar to our FEMA that gives government funds to business and individuals to help them recover from natural disasters?

Local councils have to notify Government that they're applying for emergency help within a month of the incident whereon they'll get 85% of what they spend over and above another figure based on their normal budget. It's called a Milliband. Or something like that - that's my half-heard version of what I heard on TV.

Manpower's a big problem though, Councils don't have the labourpool they once had to draw on. They used to have full complements of tradesmen and labourers they could call straight out, for prevenative measures as well as clearing up.

Your former MD ought to be very pleased with that bench Pin, and even if it's delayed it's got a story attached now. I'll watch the inbox.

Wo Hyp

I bow to Waz's considerably greater experience of public sector funding.

The reason it's called a Miliband, incidentally, is that one David Miliband is Secretary of State for the Environment (for the next couple of days at least). This makes him de facto the Government's man to sort out our little flooding mishap, a piquant responsibility when you consider that Gordon Brown has a new job as of tomorrow and the boy David was the anti-Brown camp's preferred choice to run against the PM-elect, at least till he refused.

More spice still, David Miliband's younger bro, Ed, is also an MP and was blooded as Brown's parliamentary private secretary. Miliband Jnr's constituency is nicely apposite : Doncaster North, twenty miles downstream of the water that decided to take a walk around Sheffield East.

All great fun. In fact Miliband of the Environment is a much-ridiculed figutre in the media. Even the Beeb had a bit of fun with a 'Steve Miliband' joke, which probably nobody more than five years either side of my age will have got. Apparently he isn't a midnight toker, though.

From the reports I've read, you have extensive damage. More than individuals and small businesses can deal with on their own. Whatever agency/programs you have in place to assist, I hope they act quickly. Bureaucratic wheels turn slowly in my area.

Silk and satin, leather and lace
Black panties with an angel's face

Tracked that down eventually, with the aid of google...

Did you get to the museum, or find the bench, Pin?

You'll have to explain it to me, then.

(I don't think Fishboy noticed Dud on the FP)

The bench is OK (I made a sortie to the north bank this morning). The Engine to the south, I still don't know.

The tale of the bench has started trying to write itself.

Steve Miller Band - lyrics of a song of. So not the Steve Miliband you and the BBC referenced then?

Good about the bench - will the tale appear here sometime?

(I meant to offer a bunch of s that someone beat you to the t-shirt for Dud.)

The same, I'm sure, but in truth I don't know the Steve Miller Band that well. Everyone knows The Joker, I guess, but after that it's hazy. Going to Mexico I vaguely remember.

I wouldn't have competed for Dud. Definitely more a Pete fan, myself.

The bench piece will appear if it gets finished, and provided it's not too personal. It's coming out with the real people in it. It has tangents that don't come off in the early draft, and some gimmicks that have got me cringing, so it'll need to be a clean start all over again.

The visit was surreal today. It's a mess. There's mud everywhere. I don't think Verm will be visiting her favourite skatepark anytime soon.

The picture of the fish under the bridge was surreal.

'I wouldn't have competed for Dud' You don't say! I prefer Pete too, he had such incredibly beautiful eyes.

Hey, what's with the BBC wandering up and down the Severn bleating about the poor farmers?
Lazy journalism that. Still, it looks nicer on the screen for middle-Englanders having their breakfast.
Some of the country think they can get away without insuring their businesses, because somebody will always compensate them.
Meanwhile, there's real hardship elsewhere

So sorry Pin
My son works in the Sheffield train station (Marks & Sparks) they were evacuated at 1:55pm on Monday, he was due to end his shift at 2pm! They went to a nearby pub but that also started to flood so they all went home. Luckily he lives at the top of a hill. I saw Hillsborough "swimming pool" on the news and couldn't believe my eyes.
Monday I was in hospital having a minor op and he had rung here before I got home, I tried to ring his mobile but there was no signal for 4 hours I feared the worse as I had the TV on. He finally rang me at 10pm to say he was OK and going into work at 5am. He said the news kept showing two temporary traffic lights being swept away by the floodwater, and said that was 2 mins from where he worked so he might not make it in, and he didn't.
We (east coast) are on flood alert for this weekend, the expected weather tomorrow is "worse than Monday"
Parts of my neighbouring town are under water, including an estate where I used to live.
I saw the elderly couple on the news last night whose home collapsed
I hope the poor people who have lost everything *do* get compensated. I am fully insured buildings and contents thank goodness.

Stay safe,

Annie

Thanks GB

Yeah, the farmer comments seem a bit churlish now. (Waz - I certainly didn't mean Shropshire v South Yorks, as the plight of Ludlow makes clear. I meant farmers v ordinary working folk)

Your lad's story sounds like a lot I've heard.

I'm starting to get an idea. You ever read Flixborough?
A2213407
A similar style of collecting together personal stories might work for the flood if we could get enough contributors. What does anyone think? Worth it?

By the way, the bench saga continues. We collected it this morning and the guys with the paint shop have done a fine job, way beyond the call of duty, only now everyone's slagging me off for choosing the wrong colour.

The MD's wife wanted a verdigris look. I sort of got it somewhere close, but even the guy who'd just done the job went to some lengths to explain that it would be OK to repaint it if they didn't like it.

I've a sinking feeling that over the weekend the boss is going to decide it'll have to be done all over again. I don't think I dare show my face down there...