FLOODS RISE AND SPREAD IN BRITAIN

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1947, Page 5

FLOODS RISE AND SPREAD IN BRITAIN

LONDON, Mar. 19.

The flood situation in Britain became more critical to-night as the water continued to surge through the breaches in the river banks, rushing on to more towns and villages and swamping new areas of open country.

Rain is falling to-day in many flooded areas of England—heavy in some —increasing the perils and damage. Residents of many towns, as well as farming people, are being more and more endangered of being marooned, and there have been enormous losses through damage to personal possessions.

Gloucester’s experience is typical of that of many towns in the worst flooded areas. The river Severn there was four inches above the level reached bv it in the second worst

disaster known—in 186 G—and it is only four inches below the 1852 record. The outlook is described as “very grave.”

The Severn at Worcester is at its highest, recorded level. Thousands of workers there queued for boats and buses to ferry them across a 300yard stretch of flooded main road. Flood waler has cut the city in two. The Derwent river has overflowed its banks at Malton and flooded a large area of the surrounding country.

A 10-foot wave poured over the bank of the Great Ouse at Earith in Huntingdonshire. Sappers and German prisoners, with the aid of searchlights, are desparately trying to prevent the breach widening. The chief engineer to the Great Ouse Catchment Board area, said it would take at least a fortnight to close the gap.

The Ouse is more than 11 feet above normal at York and is expected to rise as flood waters come down.

Another flood is in the Wye at Hereford. The Dee is also in full flood and is still rising. The meadowland in places is covered to a depth of 14 feet and 35,000 acres are inundated.

The river Welland, in the Spalding area, is already above the highest level previously known, and is still rising. It has flooded thousands of acres. Every farmer and farm worker in the area has been mobilised to fight the flood, and hundreds of farm vehicles are carrying sandbags to stem the flow, but the floods are winning the grim fight. The position in many parts of the Thames valley, East Anglia, is still critical. The river levels have risen and the struggle to keep the weirs in the upper reaches of the Thames free of debris has become most hazardous.

The Thames in the higher reaches is stationary, but large areas remain flooded and water this afternoon cut the main London-Southampton road to Egham.

Troops evacuated more than 1000 families to the Maidenhead area. The floodwaters at St. Neots, Huntingdonshire, have however, fallen rapidly. The Avon at Evesham in Worcestershire dropped nearly two feet.

Water three feet deep is sweeping through the streets of Bentley, a suburb of Doncaster.

A falling brick wall at St. Taunton killed a girl aged 10. A nurse aged 40 was found dead outside her employer’s premises at Reading. It is believed that she fell in a gust of wind and suffered head injuries. A ventilating pipe in a street at Camberley snapped and struck and killed a young woman. Her husband was injured. Among many injured in various areas are a man and his wife who were rescued after spending seven hours in a tree above the flood waters at Walton-on-Thames.

A bus at Stockton was stopped because a fallen tiee had blocked the road. Immediately another tree fell cn it, killing two girls. A woman who yesterday was injured when the roof of her house at Birmingham fell in during the hurricane, died. In Birmingham during the night the hurricane damaged 74 houses, 61 shops and two churches. Forty walls and hoardings were felled and also 23 large trees. Sixteen Birmingham people were treated in hospital.