Source: The West Australian
URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46271472
Date: 21/03/1947
Event: "Every route from Birmingham to central and south Wales is impassable"
Credit: The West Australian, Trove (National Library of Australia)
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN - MAR 21, 1947
MORE CRITICAL. ENGLAND'S FLOOD CALAMITY. NEW INUNDATIONS. RIVERS STILL RISING
LONDON, March 20.- The situation in Britain became more critical last night as water continued to surge through breaches in river banks, rushing on to more towns and villages and swamping new acres of open country.
A ten-foot wave poured over the bank of the Great Ouse at Erith, in Huntingdonshire. Sappers and German prisoners with the aid of searchlights have been desperately trying to prevent the breach widening. The chief engineer to the Great Ouse catchment area said it would take at least a fortnight to close the gap. He said that a 25-yard breach in the River Wiffey had flooded Hilgay and the great west fens. The Ouse is more than 11 feet above normal level at York and is expected to rise further as floodwaters come down from the Dales.
Among the rivers reported to be rising last night were the Severn at Worcester and Shrewsbury, the Derwent in Yorkshire and the Wye at Hereford. The Dee is also in full flood and still rising. Meadowland is in places covered to a depth of 14 feet and 35,000 acres have been inundated. Every route from Birmingham to central and south Wales is impassable.
The position in many parts of the Thames valley and East Anglia is still critical. River levels have risen and the struggle to keep weirs on the upper reaches of the Thames free of debris has become most hazardous, men clambering on to catwalks already awash into the middle of the flooded river.
Evacuated by Troops.
Troops have evacuated over 1,000 families in the Maidenhead area. Flood waters at St. Neots (Huntingdonshire), however, have fallen rapidly and the Avon at Evesham (Worcestershire) has dropped nearly two feet.
Mr. E. Walkden, M.P., hurriedly visited Cabinet Ministers last night and appealed for power-driven boats for food distribution and evacuation of people in the Bentley suburb of Doncaster, where water three feet deep is sweeping through the streets.
From many parts of the flooded counties reports are reaching London of severe losses on all kinds of farms. A Reuters reporter who travelled in an army "duck" in areas near Erith and Over, flooded by the Great Ouse, states: "Thousands of gallons of water are still rushing through breaches in the river's banks. Farmhouses, barns, haystacks and bungalows have been turned into islands and the fen is a sea of desolation as far as the eye can see, broken only by straw stacks, trees and odd building standing out from the water.
"We rescued a 56-year-old farmer, Jack Burley, and his son and daughter who last night refused to leave their farmhouse, but today the water was four feet deep in it. Burley said: 'I have farmed this land for 36 years. This is the greatest tragedy I have known. My farm is a ruin.' The only possessions the Burleys were able to save were a few clothes, a crate of eggs and a cat."
The disaster lies in thousands of acres of fertile land rendered useless, perhaps for years, and tons of potatoes and other vegetables and cattle-food now lying ruined under several feet of water, says the reporter. The River Welland in the Spalding area is already above the highest level previously known and is still rising. It has flooded thousands of acres. Every farmer and farmworker in the area has been mobilised to fight the flood and hundreds of farm vehicles are carrying sandbags to stem the flow, but the floods are winning the grim fight.
Gloucester's Plight.
Rain was falling yesterday in many flooded areas - heavily in some - and increasing perils and damage. Residents of many towns as well as farming people are being more and more endangered and marooned, and face enormous losses through damage to personal possessions. Gloucester's experience is typical of that of many towns in the worst flooded areas. The River Severn there was four inches above the level reached by it in the second worst disaster known - in 1886 - and it is only four inches below the 1852 record The outlook is described as "very grave."
The Severn at Worcester is at its highest recorded level. Thousands of workers there queued for boats and buses to ferry them across a 300-yards stretch of the flooded main road. Floodwater has cut the city in two.
The Derwent River overflowed its banks at Malton and flooded a Iarge area of surrounding country. It is only two feet below the previous highest level and is rising rapidly, with heavy rain falling. The Thames in its higher reaches is stationary but large areas remain flooded, and water this afternoon cut the main London-Southampton road at Egham.