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Oct 2021
6:45pm, 28 Oct 2021
2,470 posts
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Canute
I faced an interesting challenge at midnight last night.
The stream that cascades down a 20 foot rock slab behind our house drops into a narrow gulley, about 8 feet deep and 6 feet wide, before entering a culvert under the road. A grid of vertical bars about 6 inches apart prevents children or small animals from entering the culvert. In the past (before we moved in) the entrance to the culvert had once been blocked by boulders and other debris, flooded the six cottages below us. Therefore I keep it clear. Usually there are at most a few small branches and the occasional small boulder.
Last night, at around midnight I did a check before going to bed. In the midst of the maelstrom on the bottom of the gully I could see a small log wedged against the grid. Despite descending as far into the gully as was safe, I was unable to drag the log up the near vertical sides at the bottom of the gully using a garden rake. I contemplated lowering my extension ladder into the gully, but realised that manoeuvring the ladder and trying to wedge it in place would be too tricky.
This was only the third object of this size that has come down the stream in the past 4 years, and I estimated that it would require at least 6, and probably more, similarly sized objects to produce a complete blockage. In the past I have wondered if a dead sheep might manage to block the culvert, but there are at present no sheep in the small meadow on the hillside above. Weighing up all the possibilities, I considered there was no appreciable risk of a flood. I therefore decided it was not necessary to wake my wife, who was already asleep, to ask her to stand in the pelting rain to belay me as I descended further into the gully.
This morning the waterfall was spectacular but there were no more logs or other debris in the bottom of the gulley. I quite enjoyed a little bit of kindergarten-level canyoning as I descended into the gully to rescue the log from the maelstrom.
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Oct 2021
7:06pm, 28 Oct 2021
5,332 posts
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um
Canute - dare I suggest, depite the fun you had today, that others could help ?
Either some of the residents from the cottages or police/fire/council to help remove the log before flooding or full blocking couldmake the problem worse. Even though I suspect the police & fire services were pretty busy round there?
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Oct 2021
7:21pm, 28 Oct 2021
2,471 posts
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Canute
Um, I did weigh up the risks very carefully before deciding to leave it until daylight. I also weighed up the risks of my efforts this morning carefully.
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Oct 2021
10:32pm, 28 Oct 2021
81,518 posts
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Hanneke
That looks as bad as during the OMM in, was it 2008? Where it was abandoned halfway? I ended up with a commemorative fleece that says: Unaccounted For...
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Oct 2021
11:06pm, 28 Oct 2021
54,685 posts
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Velociraptor
The OMM in which a thousand charity fun runners had their lives saved by the owner of Honister Slate Mine?
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Oct 2021
11:21pm, 28 Oct 2021
81,521 posts
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Hanneke
That one 😀
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Oct 2021
11:21pm, 28 Oct 2021
81,522 posts
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Hanneke
He met his karmic fate a few years later...
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Oct 2021
11:55pm, 28 Oct 2021
54,688 posts
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Velociraptor
I'm glad my marriage has lasted longer than the car in which I was driven to my wedding, which was a genuine casualty of the 2008 OMM.
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Oct 2021
12:12am, 29 Oct 2021
81,528 posts
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Hanneke
It was indeed! Ironically, we put it on higher ground, thinking it was better. Mine survived. I moved it only a few metres in the parking field, which was enough... Quite weird to find that stupidly moving it a few metres had it on an elevation just high enough to stop it from flooding.
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Oct 2021
12:14am, 29 Oct 2021
81,529 posts
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Hanneke
While your "wedding car" was seemingly much higher. But water was freakish that weekend. Somewhere there is a photo of a spectacular waterfall covering a whole hillside behind HQ.
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Fetch Fell Runners
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