Just to clarify what Dani said - we don't need floods of Biblical proprtions to make areas unsuitable for building. A few days rain can do it.
Link to BBC website re flooding yesterday in Dani's and my part of the world.
A precis:
Quote:
Over the weekend, a sinkhole opened up in Lindal near Whinfield, swallowing a 20ft (6m) cabin, a wagon and a Nissan Micra.
[...]
The River Wharfe burst its banks in a number of places as it surged through Ilkley, Otley and Pool, north of Leeds.
Northern Trains had to cancel a large number of services after lines were flooded in West Yorkshire, including in Hebden Bridge and Leeds.
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These are all places I know now, and have been to.
The X84 usually runs from Skipton to Leeds, via Otley. Yesterday it was only running between Otley and Leeds - Ilkley was impassible. And "my" bridge - the one with my love locks on, the one I walk over pretty much on a daily basis, was closed to traffic.
I know it's not much, compared to some of the awful, cataclysmic floods I've seen on the news in America (and in fact the ones we had in 2007) but I've never lived in a flood prone area before. I'm safe, I'm on the second floor (third floor by American counting) but it shocked me just how little rain it seemed to take to create a flash flood. It rose and fell within a day, with what felt like no more rain than usual.
Closed the carboot sale though. Gutted.