Snippets about the floods

[Devonian]

The flood waters in Somerset have been tested and the amount of bacteria in the water is off the scale.

With regards to the comments about sealing airbricks and putting up flood gates, having non-return valves on drains etc, that will only work for a short period of time (hours/a day or so at most)

If you have standing water against the walls of your house, the flood waters will simply pour through the Brick/Blockwork walls, first through the outer skin, then the cavity will fill with water, then the inner leaf of the cavity wall then also becomes saturated and eventually once both the inner nd outer leafs are saturated, the water will rapidly pour through the walls and electric sockets etc flooding the inside of the house.

The only way to really stop it is to have a flood barrier surrounding the house, and then to have sumps dug out inside of the barrier into which water can be drained/allowed to collect from where you can then pump it back over the flood barrier, but that will be a 24/7 operation and depending on the permeability of the soil in your garden etc, you may need some bloody big pumps.