Flood

There was some more good progress in the first half of October - The Lodge has a updated electricity system and new flooring throughout the building. This means that the Lodge Project has now completed the ‘refitting’ phase and can move on to decoration….

The joy of this progress, however, was quickly washed away, as in the following week we had the most significant event since we started working on the site - a 100 year flood.

The Flood

In the couple of days prior to the flood there had been a deep frost, followed by some very heavy rain. On the night before Storm Babet caused a heavy downpour that continued in to the morning.

I travelled to the site in the early morning, during a break in the rain. On the journey, cars were pulled over on the motorway due to the heaviness of the rain. I have never seen this in the UK. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was just 5 minutes ahead of the wave of roads being flooded and closing behind me.

I got to the site and it was raining hard and the river was high, but it hadn’t flooded yet. I quickly gathered up all loose items and put everything under cover, before leaving the site and driving home. On the way home I drove through flooded villages; seeing water pouring in to peoples front doors as they stood and watched. Nearby Hope Valley as completely washed out and the road was covered in flowing water and debris. As I got closer to home, the motorway was closed and I sat in traffic for 3 hours.

The moment that I pulled on to the driveway I got a call from the neighbour at the fishery… He told me the river had broken it’s banks and the Courtyard and Lodge were underwater. I didn’t even get out of the car; immediately driving back to site. By the time I got back it was early evening, the rain had stopped and all the floodwater had drained and moved on. What it had left behind was a genuinely heartbreaking scene of moderate chaos.

The river broke it’s banks in 2 places; feeding water in to the courtyard and overwhelming the drainage channels. The water pooled and the whole central courtyard, including the inside of the Lodge, was covered in 1-2 feet of moving water for 20+ minutes.

The Damage

The damage caused by the flooding hasn’t been extensive, but it has been very disheartening and a major setback.

In the days following the flooding the Lodge was cleaned up, left to air dry and all of the damaged contents were removed. After a few days it became apparent that the underlay underneath the laminate flooring was not going to dry out, so the flooring that had been put down just 1 week earlier had to be taken up and removed.

This was annoying but minor in the grand scheme of things - about a thousand pounds of flooring and labour that needs redoing… not the biggest deal.

In the following week, however, a more significant problem emerged - the development of a black mould behind the plasterboard in the lower sections of the walls. The walls of the building are bare breezeblock with an un-insulated cavity between the block and plasterboard. As such, the floodwater pooled in the cavities and created a lot of damp behind the plasterboard. Mould began to develop at ground level and was slowly progressing up the lower section of the wall.

And so, the difficult decision had to be made to remove the plasterboard on the bottom third of the walls, around the entire inside of the building. This was really tedious, cold, damp work that involved handling a lot of stinky mould.

The Lodge is now in the worst state it has ever been in BY FAR. It looks bad and feels bad; there is work that had to be stopped and now a lot of catch-up to do to get back to where we were.

Moving Forward

There are some things that can be done to prevent water reaching the courtyard and reduce damage if flooding happens again.

Right now we just need to clean out the Lodge and wait whilst it dries out. It will probably take a few months and it is about to be Winter, so we’ll see how it goes…

Reflections

There are 3 conclusions I have come to since reflecting on the flooding:

• This is the first time this has happened, but now that we know it can it would be stupid to not be prepared.

• The flood has obviously forced into question the forward use of the Lodge and general viability of the whole project. After an initial panic, though, there aren’t any major plan changes needed to move forward.

• This was ultimately a good time for this to happen:

  • We are at an early stage in site development and it is better that this happened now rather than after more work had been done.

  • Now that it has happened and we know flooding is possible, we can take that into accuont when developing the plan.

  • This is a nature-based project, on a nature-rich site, and so natural events like this should be embraced. It is starting to seem like I am here to learn about dealing with water; for reasons I just don’t know yet.