
The great 1928 flood of London - sarreph
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26153241
======
jzwinck
For those not aware of the recent events, the Thames has again overflowed and
flooded some substantially populated areas:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26149946](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26149946)

If you walk around there you can see plaques on a few buildings marked like
"\-- 1917 flood level --". These can be several meters above the normal water
level, and clearly so high that great damage will occur whenever that level is
reached. But people keep calm and carry on living there, too low for comfort
but in oh-so-cute dwellings by the river. They even park there cars down there
which makes little sense. I walked there during the last historic flood, which
was all of 15 months ago.

As an aside, the Thames Barrier is a fantastic sight to see, and reachable on
foot from Greenwich in a few hours (take the water taxi home).

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ZeroGravitas
Isn't a car easier to move than a house, when when threatened by flood?

~~~
corin_
Sure, but (based on anecdotal experience of places I know along the Thames)
there are lots of places where houses are built to expect at least some level
of flooding - steps up to the door, etc. - meanwhile cars left on the street
can go very quickly (e.g. overnight) from fine and dry to completely screwed.

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pcl
From the end of the video in the article:

 _[The Thames Barrier] has closed nearly as many times in the last 10 weeks as
in the whole of the 1990s._

Meanwhile, it wasn't closed at all between September 2010 and April 2012.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier#Barrier_closures...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier#Barrier_closures_and_incidents)

~~~
gaius
The barrier is too small to protect London now.

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d0
This sort of stuff is why I buy an OS LandRanger map of the area in question
before I rent/buy. Waterways, reservoirs and elevations are really quite
important! London isn't that well protected either despite much fanfare about
it over the years.

~~~
pm215
The Environment Agency also puts their flood risk maps online:
[http://watermaps.environment-
agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiyby.aspx?...](http://watermaps.environment-
agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiyby.aspx?topic=floodmap)

so you don't even need to spend the money on an OS map.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I wonder how difficult it would be to import/integrate this data with
OpenStreetMap.

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antics
I'll see your flooding river and raise you The Great Molasses Flood of Boston:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster)

21 dead. 150 injured.

Had they done their calculus/physics homework properly, they'd have known to
calculate thickness of the tanks required as a function of the depth of the
liquid. Stay in school, kids.

~~~
felixthehat
The London Beer Flood Only 8 dead, but beer
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood)

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zacinbusiness
Ah London. Easily my favorite place on Earth.

~~~
d0
Do you actually live in London?

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shocks
What does it matter?

~~~
benjohnson
Usually the drawbacks of any locality would only be apparent if you lived and
worked there. For example: visiting Disneyland for a day versus woking at
Disneyland for a year.

~~~
corin_
Can probably be said about most places, but a common joke is that true
Londoners both think London the best place in the world, and also the worst.

(Personally I spend 1-3 days a week in London, have done for years, absolutely
love it but wouldn't want to live there.)

~~~
toomuchtodo
> (Personally I spend 1-3 days a week in London, have done for years,
> absolutely love it but wouldn't want to live there.)

London and Vegas share that view in my mind. I love Vegas and London, but want
to spend no more than 72 hours in each place at a time.

~~~
corin_
For similar reasons? I've never been to Vegas (on purpose, I refuse to go to
CES each year, I wouldn't do well stuck in casinos day after day!) but imagine
it quite different to London. And actually I don't mind spending more than 3
days in London at a time, although mostly I'll go one day at a time, I do have
to stay there a few times a year for up to a week, and it's not too much time
that I mind, I just like knowing that at some point I can go home to somewhere
that isn't London.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Different reasons. Vegas because of its culture, London because of its cost
and density of people.

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fit2rule
The English in a nutshell:

    
    
        "..  we forget the force of nature. So these sorts of moments are quite disturbing to people."

