Bill's just phoned me to ask if I'm ok, and I am. We have had some water in the village, but it is due to the beck, which runs through part of the village, suffering from back-flow from the flooded fields and dyke into which it normally goes. The crossroads about 100yds down from me was under about 6" on friday morning, and the houses across from the beck (luckily above road level) couldn't easily get out. Up the road from there water was lapping in back gardens and one friend hopes his prize fish went to the bottom of his pond when it got covered. Even if they did, he says they'll be sickly from the mucky water. The local post office said it got within about 10 feet of their buildings. It has receded a bit for the time being, and I hear the A19 is now open. The problem there is that the same dyke which receives our beck crosses the road about halfway between us and Haddlesey. It had burst its banks on Monday. The road is on a low causeway over the flood-plain. I went through early Thursday Morning on my way to Selby, and just there, where the road dips, it was flooded, while the rest of the road had water literally lapping at its edges. It was closed by lunchtime. Selby has been without power due to a sub-station being flooded, but I think it may be back on now. Barlby, just to the other side of Selby has had problems, and there continues to be concern about a large residential area of Selby which is by the river. My sympathies go to the guy in the next village along from me, Gowdall. He has a fishing lake and this was not flooding. (At least on Thursday) But the environment agency the next day in their wisdom decided, so I was told, to deliberately breach the floodbank near him to take the water away from the main village. They omitted to warn him of this, and not only did it flood the road, it also flooded his house and his carp lake with £50k worth of fish. He was featured on the TV news. He has lost everything. To give you an idea of where we are, Bill and I live on the south side of the Aire, south of Selby. The floodbank's literally at the bottom of his road, whereas I am about half a mile away, and my village is on a slight rise. Yet even so, with the beck backing up, we still get some flooding. We may end up as an island! They have evacuated people from villages either side of us who are closer to the river. So we now wait and see what the next couple of days will bring.The water got quite close to the road out of our village which leads to the A19. Selby is on the Ouse. The two rivers converge about 10 miles east from me at Airmyn, but I went by that way on friday, and being a wider channel and tidal, it looked merely like a very high tide. Goole, an inland port nearby, does not seem to flood!

My sympathy is with any of you who have suffered. I feel so lucky to be on a bit of a hill!

Andrea

Andrea