Turning on my TV this morning I was greeted with the usual
early morning diet of news and features but, try as I might, I couldn’t find a
single network that was reporting on the major news story of the previous day:
The Great Bourne Flood.
It’s almost as if this remote backwater of South
Lincolnshire had been rendered invisible to the news gatherers in that there
London. They were more interested in dramatic pictures of The Shard being
struck by lightning than some soggy yokels up to their knees in water, for
shame.
Yesterday started warm and sunny, I was working from home
but keeping a keen eye on the weather. Having recently laid fresh grass seed in
the garden to deal with some threadbare patches and noticing how little green
shoots of recovery were pushing their way up from the ground, I ensured that
they were being kept fresh and watered. What better though than actual rain
water to turn my sparse lawn into a lustrous green tableau of wonder?
As the afternoon progressed the dark clouds rolled in and I
opened a window near where I was working so that I could hear the life-giving pitter-patter of gentle raindrops. I perhaps should have taken heed
that all may not be well when the forthcoming shower was heralded by a blinding
flash of lightning and an almighty clap of thunder so loud that I feared that the very fabric of reality had split asunder, releasing all manner of
hellish demons and mischievous sprites upon the world.
The rain quickly arrived, falling hard and fast. Then it
turned up a notch and came down even harder and even faster. The rain god
looked down upon this small town and was dissatisfied. He stared hard at all
the options available to him to up the ante with this deluge and decided to
smash his fist down on all of the buttons at once just to see what would
happen.
What happened was an impossibly deafening increase in
precipitation with a healthy and prolonged burst of hailstones, just for good
measure. This kept going for about an hour without much letting up.
I wasn’t concerned; it was just a heavy shower, nothing to
worry about. I looked out of the rear window behind where I was working. The
garden was getting a little moist and the paved alleyway where the bins are
kept was starting to gain large puddles but nothing out of the ordinary.
I continued to work and had just come off the phone to a
particularly unhelpful individual at a well-known healthcare provider when I
heard a dripping sound from nearby. I closed the window but it didn’t help. There
was still a sound of invading water coming from somewhere nearby.
I quickly ascertained that it was originating from my right
hand side just behind a shelving unit full of DVDs. With a bit of puffing,
panting and swearing I moved the unit to one side to see a damp patch on the
carpet. I followed the trail of the dripping water up to a cupboard attached to
the wall. I opened the cupboard and, sure enough, from somewhere within this
cupboard the offending rainwater was emanating. The only problem was that this
particular cupboard was housing the fuse box and electricity meter.
I am, as I have observed previously, not a practical man in
any sense. I looked at the bewildering array of switches and dials in
desperation. My eyes were drawn to the biggest of the switches, helpfully
coloured red. I couldn’t see what the label underneath read as time had faded
it, but I figured that it would either turn everything off or be the ‘self-destruct’
switch. With considerable trepidation I reached in to the cupboard and, whilst
making my peace with the world, I flicked it downwards.
Thankfully this seemed to do the trick as I found myself
still alive and in a strange half-light in a silent house, apart of course from
the incessant drumming of the rain. Electrocution avoided I deployed all manner
of buckets, cloths and tea towels into the affected area.
Catastrophe averted I looked out of the window, only to see
that whilst I’d been distracted the puddles outside were now a raging stream.
Not only had the gutters given up, the drains had become redundant. I found
some wellies and splashed outside to see if I could assist the drains by
clearing them a little. This only had a very mild effect as more rain was
falling from the heavens than being swept away by the drainage system, even
with my assistance.
I looked at my grass and realised that I could only see half
of it, the rest was underneath a newly formed swamp, replete with a frog hopping
merrily amongst it. I retreated indoors, threw more towels at the dripping fuse
box cupboard and stared miserably out of the window, wishing I’d been one of
those people who’d won a speedboat on ‘Bullseye’ back in the 80s. ‘Now they’re
laughing’, I thought.
After what seemed to be an interminable age the rain
decreased a little and, whilst on the phone to a colleague, I looked out of the
rear bedroom window to see that the road behind our house had turned into an
actual river. In amongst this river was a fire engine with some sturdy firemen
up to their knees in murky brown water trying to establish how they were going
to fight the elements.
Funnily enough I nearly had need of firemen at lunchtime
when I came close to setting fire to the kitchen whilst grilling some sausages.
I reasoned that having suffered fire and flood I only had plague and pestilence
to go therefore I may as well venture outside for a closer look.
The one thing that draws human beings together is a bit of a
drama on your doorstep. In about half an hour I met and chatted to neighbours
that I only knew as nodding acquaintances or had never seen before yesterday
afternoon. Everyone had a tale to tell; where else there were floods, which
roads were blocked, how they remember when this happened 20 years ago.
I, along with one of my neighbours, went wading into the
water to see how deep it was, just like those reporters on the news. I then did
what everyone does these days, took a photo and posted it on to Facebook.
Today is another day, which it would be really. The water has
been pumped away. Upon calmer investigation I discovered that thankfully the
incoming water had missed penetrating the fuse box by millimetres although
still too close for comfort, and my garden is now less swampy and full of pond
life. My newly sown grass is probably doomed but at least I didn’t live down the
road behind ours as that floodwater came perilously close to turning up as an
unwelcome house guest for some.
Yet still no contact from any reporters from the BBC, ITN,
Sky News, CNN, Fox News, France 24, Al-Jazeera, or any of the other news
organisations I can remember that sit within the 500s on my Sky box. All they
want to talk about is UKIP or Russia which is most disappointing.
There’s a story right here folks, just waiting to be told,
which will now fall into Bourne folklore.
“Those floods of 2014, I remember them well. The water was
so high they had to send a Cross Channel ferry to rescue us, oh yes”.
