And Then We Had No Water

• 16th August 2007 at 21:43

I'd originally intended to follow up my Hawaiian Adventure entry a lot sooner, but the past couple of weeks have been... hectic. I'm going to London 2 days a week now, so the 12 hour commute on top of my work does mean I don't have as much free time as I'd like. Never mind, I'm sure it'll settle down.

So, as I said last time, we got back from our holiday to our flat in Cheltenham after being awake for about 40 hours. We were sweaty and tired, and looking forward to a shower and a change of clothes. As you can imagine, we were therefore not best pleased to find that there was no running water.

While we had been away, Gloucestershire flooded. And not just a few roads, virtually the entire county was under water. And it got very close to us - the end of our road was flooded, the leisure center where we play squash was submerged, and it was a quite frankly a miracle that our flat made it through safely. There's a river at the bottom of our road, and according to the Environment Agency, the flood plain ends next door - and our flat is partially underground by ~4 feet, so we were very, very lucky.

Although our flat escaped, the local water treatment plant wasn't so fortunate. Running water supply to the entire area was taken out for over two weeks. Again, purely by luck we happened to be on holiday for the worst of it, and were only without running water for 3 days. I really do feel so sorry for the people who were here throughout - as if getting flooded wasn't bad enough, they then had to collect bottled water from car parks and find bowsers that weren't empty - just adds insult to injury. It was bad enough when we got back and there wasn't panic, but by all accounts it was mayhem when the water first went down.

As an aside, some say Severn Trent should have seen it coming, and I agree. If your building site gets flooded, it's kinda a sign telling you you should put up some flood defences. So much for privitisation of national services - nice idea in theory, that companies run more efficiently than government, but what the Tories failed to realise (or at least admit) is that companies make money at the expense of the consumer. Corners are always cut in order to make a profit, and when you're talking about the infrastructure of a country, things just aren't going to work out well. Labour are just as bad with their PFIs. Oops, there I go again. And the best bit is that Severn Trent had the nerve to write us a letter telling us that as customers we're not eligable for compensation. Business as usual in the billing department then.

Things were being handled well by the time we got back. The army were distributing 4 million bottles of water a day from Cheltenham racecourse to local car parks, and there were bowsers on every street corner that were getting refilled pretty frequently. It was just like you see on the tv, only it was right outside our front door. Quite an event to be caught up in - in a way I'm a bit disappointed I missed the height of it. But only a little bit.

The lack of water didn't bother me too much though, to be honest. We had plenty to drink, and in a way it was quite fun - having a "shower" with three bottles of cold Evian and one heated in the kettle was certainly an experience. I mean sure, I had to get toilets to flush with no running water back when I was packing up my old family home in 2005, but rather than emptying in a bucket filled from the kitchen tap, until we found a bowser, I was emptying bottles of Evian...

After a couple of days they started to bring the water supply back online; first in Gloucester, and then Cheltenham the day after. We weren't allowed to use it for anything other than showers and emptying toilets though for a few days - still not quite sure why the water was OK to wash my face with and shave (and bleed) in, but it was not OK to use it to wash up dishes... but never mind.

Eventually the notice came through that we could use the water to wash up and drink again, and within the hour Severn Trent had a truck outside loading up the bowsers. Efficient when it saves them money.

And that concludes quite possibly the longest entry I have ever, and will ever, write about water. Well, at least let's hope so - I certainly hope I never have cause to write about flooding again.

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