Source: The Advertiser
URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/30518200
Date: 19/03/1947
Event: The "record flood levels of 1894 have already been passed in many places"
Credit: The Advertiser, Trove (National Library of Australia)
THE ADVERTISER - MAR 19, 1947
RAGING FLOODS IN ENGLAND
Disaster Threatens Fen Country
Australian Associated Press And Our Special Representative
LONDON, March 18. Hundreds of troops, volunteers, fen-dwellers and German prisoners of war, aided by radio-vans, are today fighting to stave off the greatest flood disaster that ever threatened the Cambridgeshire fenlands.
Thousands of acres are already feet deep under a rolling tide of water, which is crashing through a 20-yard-wide breach in the south bank of the Great Ouse. The breach is the widest of six, and the rush of water is sweeping away thousands of sandbags which were placed there to hold it back.
Thames Rising Fast
Floodwaters are still spreading elsewhere in the south of England as the great thaw continues. Vast areas of the Thames Valley and the fen district are threatened with further inundations.
The Thames Conservancy Board has ceased to predict how the floods might develop. The record flood levels of 1894 have already been passed in many places, and the river is likely to continue to rise. The Thames is three miles wide at Chertsey.
A Conservancy official at Reading said, "We are really terribly worried. There is no saying what might happen."
Masses of frozen snow and ice blocking subsidiary drains and dykes caused the flooding of thousands of rich agricultural areas, further menacing food production. Thousands have already been made homeless in the worst floods for years. Thousands more, often without gas, food or drinking water, are watching the waters rising from upper windows.
Troops, wearing life-jackets, with fleets of "ducks," trucks, amphibious tanks, assault boats and rubber dinghies, are still ploughing through the racing waters, running ferry services, carrying marooned families from their homes to rescue centres, transporting food, or assisting workers to get to and from their jobs. Tank officers with "walkie-talkie"' radio are directing the campaign.
Three hundred Royal Engineers worked all day opening potato clamps in the fen district to save hundreds of tons before the waters washed them away.
The Fuel Ministry authorised the use of electricity during restricted hours for boiling water in numerous districts where the supply had been contaminated by the flooding of filter-beds.
Two additions to the death roll are brothers, aged 10 and 11, who were drowned in a pool at Bristol when thawing ice broke. Another boy lying on the cracking ice held one of them up until he slipped from his numbed grasp, while firemen made frantic efforts to rescue them.
Barrier Against Flood
Troops, who are working to beat the Thames, which is rising at the rate of an inch an hour built a barrier against the floods at the huge pumping station at Hampton and saved the water supply of two million Londoners, says the "Daily Mail."
The soldiers, in response to an emergency call from the Metropolitan Water Board, built a bank which it is hoped will save the station from inundation. The Hampton station daily pumps 120 million gallons of water for residents of north-western and southern London.
Six army assault craft joined the emergency service taking workers from flooded homes at Maidenhead, where five thousand houses are affected and 1,500 people are homeless. Some parts of Maidenhead are four or five feet under water.
Floods surging down the Severn Valley threaten to convert Shrewsbury into an island by tonight.
Centres for flood refugees have been opened at Aylesbury. Rescuers are using ancient motor-boats and river craft, which made the trip to Dunkirk to bring out residents of Thames Valley towns such as Datchet, where the parish church is the only dry spot.
Death Roll Fifteen
A woman was killed near St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, when the roof of a cottage collapsed during the gale on Sunday, making the hurricane death roll 15, including six men, eight women and a 10-year-old girl. Three Auster aircraft on a Leicestershire aerodrome were lifted into the air by the wind, one lodging on the roof of a building 20 ft. high.
London's temperature, at 10 a.m. today was 54 degrees, which is the highest since January 16.