what if this was after TSHTF?

[bigpaul]

exerpt from "The North Devon Journal" dated today. "The 2012/13 flooding has left the county with a legacy of repairs that will be carried out over the next FOUR YEARS. there are 100 structures across the county in need of repair including 2 bridges costing over £350,000 each". that is just one winters bad weather and it will take 4 years to repair them all!! the canal near Tiverton broke its banks around the same time and flooded the surrounding farmland, then there was the flooding around the Somerset Levels and on the Thames. now imagine this was SHTF and no repairs were being done-ever and you can see how quickly roads, bridges, rivers, fields and embankments would be unusable cant you? would this alter your plans and how?

[Sunna]

at 1st ad for some time transport links would stay open , but as you say things would break or where out then I think you would get on popular stretches of road ect tolls ie my canal iv repaied it you pay me to use it.
this would work well as most folk would want to be able to get about safely .

this thread is in the old mass die off mind set once more , going back in time to that the old days were better , if their was or was not a mass die off during the bad floods around me in 07/08 every body suck together helped each other got locals stuck in flood water out and home , would you and your street/village stick together , mend a road , clear a fallen tree....?

[NorthernRaider]

BP there was a report published I think it was in NATURE about 10 years ago that said in the west country with its high rain fall and warm climate that if the roads were not maintained or heavily used over 70% of them would become unsuitable for wheeled vehicles in less than ten years. blocked drains, fallen trees and limbs, plant overgrowth, subsidence, landslip, erosion and undermining, leave mould cover etc, add a couple of big floods and bingo the sw is back to preindustrial revolution levels of transport. iE Boat, Foot or Gee Gee

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Cant help but this of the joy the folks in the west country would feel to know they are cut off from bloody London and the damn home counties

[bigpaul]

(31 October 2014, 12:33)NorthernRaider Wrote: BP there was a report published I think it was in NATURE about 10 years ago that said in the west country with its high rain fall and warm climate that if the roads were not maintained or heavily used over 70% of them would become unsuitable for wheeled vehicles in less than ten years. blocked drains, fallen trees and limbs, plant overgrowth, subsidence, landslip, erosion and undermining, leave mould cover etc, add a couple of big floods and bingo the sw is back to preindustrial revolution levels of transport. iE Boat, Foot or Gee Gee

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Cant help but this of the joy the folks in the west country would feel to know they are cut off from bloody London and the damn home counties

yes, this is the kind of thing I was referring to NR, but I think 10 years is a bit fanciful-I think it will be closer to 2 years given a bad winter in between .not sure about the Westcountry in general but it wouldn't take much to make Devon(and therefore Cornwall) to be cut off from the rest of the country given its geology and geography, the recent flooding at Dawlish, the landslides on the Jurassic coast, flooding at Cowley Bridge(Exeter) shows us just how it might go.(a certain person did a piece on this very subject some time ago as I recall).

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I was actually amazed when we moved back to Devon from Somerset just how much road maintenance, gulley and drain clearing and tree cutting is done on a regular basis in this area, if that stopped things would "gum up" pretty quickly. take for instance: a piece of ground at the back of here about quarter of an acre, was cleared, cut down, fenced and gated AND THEN LEFT, that was exactly 12 months ago, the weeds and overgrowth in that field are now 1 metre high and the tree seedlings are now 2 metres high-you would be unable to walk through this now and I doubt if you could get more than 15 feet from the gate, imagine this on a larger scale and I think people will start to realise what we are up against, nature wont stop just because of TSHTF.

[Devonian]

The fact is that yes this will be true in some places, but in other places no.

For example the 2 bridges referred to are two very old stone bridges which were subjected to serious scour during one of the wettest winters on record, which undermined the bridges causing them to collapse.

There are however probably another 2000+ bridges in Devon which did not fail.

Also none of these bridge have realistically had any maintenance other than maybe the rebuilding of parapet walls from where vehicles have hit them, as for drainage, there is drainage on these bridges.

And most of these bridges have been standing for 100's of years, long before cars were around and way before the current population was at it's present levels, so why would they suddenly fail in the future???

As for the newer modern bridges, then look at structures like the Torridge Bridge or the Kenwith Viaduct or the South Molton Viaduct, with these there has been no maintenance on these structures since they were built in the 1980's, yes they are heavily trafficked but these sorts of structures are designed to be maintenance free for at least 30+ years.

The main routes will remain passable and useable for many years after any event, the worst affected roads will be the back roads where the hedges and verges start to swallow the roads.

The biggest issues will large trees coming down in storms which can't be easily cleared and rivers bursting their banks and washing out sections of roads, but in the "wider scale of things", these are like to far and few between.

I think it is far more likely that in any serious situation groups and towns will simply block roads by felling trees etc to provide added security and protection against others entering their area.

[bigpaul]

a lot of the old river bridges were built on wool sacks which have been scoured out in the heavy rains and flooding, some of them are standing on fresh air. and its not just bridges, just how long do you think some of our roads will last without any repairs? I don't know about where you live Dev but most of the roads I travel on are back country non classified roads and they haven't see any tarmac for decades never mind a couple of years and they are very close to becoming undriveable in some places.

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and I'm sure you've noticed how often the Tarka Line is flooded between Barnstaple and Exeter in the winter storms?

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oh and you intend to use "major routes" after an event do you? good luck with that.

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remember Boscastle?? that's what I'm talking about.

[Devonian]

Hi Paul and yes I know what you are saying and I'm regularly out and about in the darkest parts of the county. I guess a lot depends on what you mean by driveable??

Will we be able to cruise along at 40mph, then no, but pot holes, broken up tarmac and washed out sections do not necessarily make a road in passable or unusable - unless of course you are taking your wife out in the MX5 again

A lot of the UCR's are simply the old mud and stone pony tracks which have had thin layers of tar and chippings sprayed on over the years to provide the metalled surface.

As for the Tarka Line, then yes, this follows the route of the river on a flood plain, but I'm pretty sure the trains won't be running anyway.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there will not be problems, but the problems that do occur will either be passable or they will be isolated issues meaning alternatives routes will be used/found.....

As for roads flooding, yes they flood and may be impassable for a few weeks, but then it clears..... look at the Somerset levels, they haven't had to rebuild any road there despite them being under water for months....

With my Civil Engineering (hard) hat on I just don't believe that the entire transport network will just suddenly fail within a decade or 2........

Also look at the talk of reinstating the Exeter to Okehampton rail route, it hasn't been used for several decades, but most of it is still there and could be put back into use with little effort.

[bigpaul]

DEV me old mucker, if a serious event were to happen the entire transport system would shut down in weeks never mind a decade or two. but I'm not so much talking about the infrastructure itself as what goes on around it, given that in a serious event (we ARE talking TSHTF here not some minor local difficulty)no repairs would be undertaken or even doable. without maintenance gullies and ditches flood, then they flood OVER onto the road taking silt, soil and other sedements onto the road, the water recedes but leaves behind the silt and soils, onto this is deposited seeds and other material by storms, winds and birds, these then grow onto the road bed and as I have already said within 12 months these can be a metre high or more in the case of saplings and the like, these will break up the already potholed road and make it impassable, to say nothing of fallen trees and other materials, winter flooding will undermine a lot of the roads as has happened in the last winter or two(the river road at Umberleigh on the A377 Barnstaple to Exeter road has had traffic lights due to road erosion for the last 12 months) by which time their is no road fuel left anyway so I doubt anyone is going very far, and like NR said we'll all be walking or riding anyway and it wont be motorised.

[Mortblanc]

Again, everyone seems to feel that SHTF there will be no repairs or rebuilding but everyone will still be traveling and driving as they are today !! ???

SHTF there will be no fuel, and not much of anyone going anywhere, so the condition of the infrastructure is the least of anyone's worry, just like it was the first time Rome fell.

If you have your 90% die off you will have 90% fewer people using the infrastructure and it will accordingly last 9x longer!

At that point if you don't like floods move to higher ground, if you don't like winter move south......

You'll have plenty of room for everyone, right...???

Or you will realize that after your 90% die off you will have the same population density that the US has in the present, someone will form some kind of government, and your choices will still be limited.

Probably "The New Powers That Be" will simply come through, conscript a bunch of the new peasants and force them to fix the roads, bridges and so forth.

How do you think they built Stonehenge?

[bigpaul]

well that's fine then MB cos the government dosent even know the Southwest exists NOW let alone after TSHTF....unless its election time that is. most politicians think the south west begins and ends at Bristol. they only got off their arses and did something about the flooding on the Somerset Levels cos the residents made such an almighty fuss. and yes DEV the flooding on the levels happened because the Dykes and Reams weren't dredged and the banks weren't maintained.....maintenance again.

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if you read my OP again you will see that the 100s of repairs needed in Devon will take over 4 years to complete, this is now when money and labour is available, what happens after TSHTF when the population is decimated and spread out and we haven't got the materials and power to do any of these repairs? mother nature will not stop just because man cant carry out the repairs to the roads and bridges which are needed to keep them in useable condition. have you ever seen Buddlea undermine a pavement or tarmac or concrete, I have, that's the power of nature and we all ignore it at our peril.

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ok i'll shut up now, its obvious I'm flogging a dead horse, as usual.