Firstly, thank you for your emails, from those who know that I live in Somerset and are concerned, after seeing the floods on your news. We are fine, we live about 10 miles from the Somerset Levels, on the edge of the Mendip Hills, so higher up. (If you click on the "Somerset Levels" link above, you can see what the Levels look like not flooded and its proximity to the sea).
We are just fed up with the rain, but that is nothing comparing to what the people on the Levels have been going through.
We are just fed up with the rain, but that is nothing comparing to what the people on the Levels have been going through.
Somerset is a large county, the Levels are just a part of it. It is a flat area, below the sea level and during high tides easily flooded. It is said, that this is where "Somerset" got its name from - as the area always used to flood during the winter, the farmers used to take themselves and their livestock to the surrounding hills and return to the Levels for the summer - the Summer People.
So, historically the floods were always there, but they were managed in various ways - by canals and by dredging rivers among others. Few years ago the government and the environmental agency decided, for reasons known best to them, to let the Levels flood - and this is the result; this year, with much higher than average rainfall, the Levels are well and truly under water, and the parts which are not, are cut off. The picture above is not mine, but from the Internet, sorry, I can't remember which site; I just want to show you the scale of it. You can see more pictures here .
Some of the homes have been flooded since Christmas, and it is only now, when under the media spotlight, the government has decided to do "something" and promised money. But by now the damage has been done; the cattle and other livestock, standing in the water on the farms, need to be evacuated. There are other small businesses there which can't trade.
With the weather forecast not in our favour, more people have to leave their flooded homes.
It has been a lovely, sunny day in Somerset today, but it was only a brief break. More rain and strong winds are forecasted for the next few days.
Of course, it is not only Somerset which is suffering, the coastal areas of Devon and Cornwall have been hammered by high tides; a part of the railway connecting those two counties literary washed away. I am sure that our bloggers in those parts have their own stories to tell, as do others in other parts of the country.
It is evening now, it is dark outside and I can hear heavy rain falling on our roof, but we are dry inside.
I can't even imagine what it like for the people living on the Levels.
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