23 minutes into bbc national news and 75 seconds to cover the biblical weather unfolding in Sheffield and north today!!

[Nononoandno]

Gobsmacked at BBCs lack of coverage of the weather events that have been unfolding in Sheffield since 8am, thousands of businesses across the city have been letting staff leave from early afternoon, hundreds of road closures/rail services and busses stopped prior to rush hour times, it’s still hammering down with rain, hundreds have been trapped in meadow hall!! If this had been London I’m sure it would have had more than 75 seconds of coverage!!

i know of a number of reservoirs (Peak District and edge of Sheffield) that have been drained about 15 -20 years ago, I have a feeling (heard at the time) this was due to safety and being used for outdoor swimming In hot weather.

Peterrouse
It’s been getting Proper coverage since yesterday!! When I created the post on Thursday there was 75 seconds of coverage over 20 mins into the start of bbc news. The events were unfolding since 8am and it was already a bad situation since lunchtime!!!

Bbc online news had it as ‘most read’ so the ranking of what most people were clicking on and wanting to know about... it took until yesterday for BBC news to give it the top slot!! Do you think BBC would have still been rattling on about politics/Brexit if London had been underwater since lunchtime

My rant and creation of the post was after watching the bbc 10pm news on Thursday!

Nononoandno has hit the nail on the head. Many conurbations have been developed next to rivers because of the benefit of the rivers for power and transport for the mills and factories that this towns and cities evolved from. In many cases the routes of the rivers have been heavily engineered too. Now that our economy is no longer driven by these manufacturing industries, we have a lot of buildings and infrastructure built in flood plains. The use of the buildings, or land, has often been changed, but the rivers are still there.

Something else to consider - much of S abd E Yorks and Lincolnshire was naturally marshland, and was drained and reclaimed in the time of Charles 1st! Even though this is about 500 years ago, it is still “ instant” in geological timescales, and rivers will revert back to where they want to go ultimately.

I can absolutely assure you that the EA looks at historic flood outlines, river morphology, biodiversity, economics, properties affected and the impact of new flood defences in communities downstream (and upstream) as well as many other factors, when identifying a scheme to develop. Options are heavily reviewed and scrutinised at several levels and we have to meet economic and habitat targets to get funding. We really are not as callous and thoughtless as you might think.

What we can’t do is predict unprecedented amounts of rainfall.

I thought the same thing. In 2009 the last major floods, 30-40%of houses in hull were flooded, didn’t even make the news as there were a few fields underwater down south.

I think Nono was bang on.
Sheffield is like a dirty word to the beeb (Dan Walker is doing a stellar job though)
Even the regional news is nicknamed look Leeds (they get All the investment up here )
Apart from Meadowhall though Sheff and surrounding places have coped, quietly cracking on with it.

No statement from Meadowhall management then? They declined on the news last night.
They cocked up massively. They should have looked after the people who were stranded there a lot better than they did. It wouldn't have cost them much and it might have taken the spotlight off the fact they didn't cancel the Christmas lights until 5pm when hundreds of families and teens had already arrived. Parents were told not to set off to collect their children.
My ds's college closed on Thursday at 2pm due to Penistone road being flooded, Meadowhall management waited for 3 further hours of rainfall to descend before making a decision.

I was wondering what the point of the picture of a canal was! Especially when the water level was well below the top of the wall! Till I read it was the belper railway line!

I hope water is starting to recede now.

Can we just hold back all the water? Can't we build some new 'rivers' to run off overflow into. Like we build roads, deep flood outlets to run off to some miles away.

Thank you for your interesting contributions @BikeRunSki. I was hoping you would come along and give a professional view.

I agree GinandGingerBeer. Meadowhall management could have done a better PR job and redeeemd themselves somewhat if they had been more proactive about looking after the stranded people.

I imagine someone's job will be on the line now.

I agree that the environment agency are doing a great job, in monitoring, warning and communicating, I presume a review of how the improved defenses coped this time round will follow and I’m sure they will further improve where there are still weaknesses, I also presume they are restricted the extent to what they can do due to funding though.

Reality is that a months worth of rain could potentially fall in a day on any part of the uk at any time! Sheffield and the surrounding regions are probably better equipped to deal with the situation more than many other regions and cities due to past historic events. Sheffield and the 7 hills and number of rivers is what probably makes the seriousness escalate so quickly, again just my thoughts and I’m not an expert

Can we just hold back all the water?
We do. We have regulators at Meadowgate (Rother Valley Country Park), Canklow and Treeton which stop the flow and force the river to spill into controlled washlabds (flood plains with embankments around the edge to store flood water). We use these to stop the peak flow from the Don and the peak flow from the Rother both hitting the Lower Don (Doncaster area) at once.

Can't we build some new 'rivers' to run off overflow into. Like we build roads, deep flood outlets to run off to some miles away.
Bypass channels, yes, we do. Flood storage areas, yes, we do. Drains, yes, we do. Land drainage is designed to deal with a particular level of storm, this has been exceeded by a long way recently. It could be made bigger, there would be a big land take and cost implication. There is no point in increasing storm drainage capacity in location X, if it’s only going to flow into older, narrower drainage at a location Y. A lot of the drainage network in the UK is Victorian still. Flood risk management in urban areas is a complex process, and appropriate solutions are often built up of many elements, from upland land management to flow control structures, flood wall, flood storage, and outfall structures. Even where technical solutions are possible, their implementation relies on public investment, for which many other purses are competing.

My post above about the sequence of events on Thursday (on the “Sheffield forum”) makes interesting reading about effective and efficient timings of the Environmeny Agency compared to Meadowhall announcements saying “almost“ come on down to the party that’s still going ahead!!

Bikerunski
A great informative post thank you... rather than building more slipways or wider and higher, couldn’t we go deeper? If the river bed on the don was made a foot or so lower? Obviously gradually over time and taking into account the ecology of the river network??

So the EA was putting out serious flood warnings our including Meadowhall area from lunchtime. Yet at 4pm local news was saying meadowhall was still open for its annual lights switch on and concert! It took till 5pm for them to cancel it .... what a joke!
I am very angry about this. They were actually telling people to come early and get there for 4 o'clock that afternoon. It would be bad enough for adults and families stuck there but they must know a lot of young teenagers go with their friends. They were then stuck with no way for their parents to come and collect them.

I'm in Rother Valley and dry
Thank you to the efforts of Bike and colleagues

Can we just hold back all the water, clearly not.

Anythings possible in our weather, and I can see from the EA post that much complex and well thought out programmes are in place to best work with what we have, under tight financial constraint.

For me, blocking and storing water, seems to go against the tide. Can't flashpoints, like this particular geography have huge gulley's than run to the sea. Like 'Thunder Road'. It might not be much used, but it would take the problem away from communities, and prevent the passing on of the problem to further down where the receiving facilities are insufficient to cope.

Sounds like Meadowhall actively put families at risk

Indeed AnyMinuteNow someone should be held responsible.

Former sheriff Annie Hall named as woman drowned in derby flood waters.

More rain is forecast. We have a yellow warning here.

Ginford
I was worried this might happen, it’s been raining all night and still is in Sheffield south.

Channel 4 is spending a good amount of time reporting this.

Including Boris saying they arent listening to emergency services.

to anyone affected,

Boris won't treat it as a national emergency. Jo Swinson visited South Yorkshire today and said it should be.

I’ve just watched the 6.30pm “look north” news recording on line, the government response and support has been shockingly poor for those affected by the floods, I just can’t understand why the army haven’t been drafted in to help? What a COMPLETE shambles!!
This will change the way I vote.

It won't change the way I vote as I would never have voted Tory in the first place. South Yorkshire is not traditionally Tory so I don't think Boris will have lost any votes anyway.