Rain and floods December 2009

[Clive]

Hi all,

Amazing floods here for the last part of December...... Grazalema has received over 700 litres per metre in the last couple of weeks with rivers bursting banks, homes being flooded and also quite a lot of damage to land and roads.... It looks like a lot of Spain and Portugal has had it hard.... 2000 homes flooded in jerez de la Frontera and houses in Galicia flooded to the top of the ground floor windows.....

Here are some pictures......

Our entrance driveway being returned to riverbed status

A dry stone wall  I built now a wetstone waterfall... The wall is still perfectly intact even after 3 days of flooding.... if it had been built with concrete it would more than likely have been destroyed

The lovely suspension footbridge at a local beauty spot torn to shreds

Our December workawayer ( www.workaway.info ) being forced to harvest peas in adverse conditions...

The dam at Bornos overflowing..... It is this and the next dam down holding back the flood water that is affecting Jerez de la Frontera.... The risk now is that all three dams in this chain get filled to capacity and become unable to control the amount of water flowing down stream....

Anyone else got some pictures of the latest floods?

[parthenope]

Wow, that's some serious flooding Clive!

I can't believe how much water is spilling down your drive, the river seemed so tranquil back in August!

No flood pics I'm afraid, but I have attached a couple of photos of Sue, Clive, Lynn (Mrs Parthenope) & Adam (Parthenope Jnr) on the bridge at the Cueva del Gato (the suspension bridge Clive refers to) from the summer of 2008, and the Bornos dam from August 2009 as a before to go with Clive's afters.
The amount of vegetation washed away at both sites is quite a contrast.

Hope your feet are staying dry in Grazalema

Steve

[Dave]

Hi Clive and All
Well here it León it has been grey and wet, the snow has virtually gone. The Bernesga is flowing fast and around 2 metres higher than usual, but has not burst it´s banks so far. The TV pictures of those poor people in Jerez are very sad, but floods like these seem to be becoming more frequent, anyway glad you are all well, so stay as dry as possible, and have a good New Year
Regards
Dave

[Jesus Contreras]

Almería DRY sand ramblas has become in huge rivers.

Many damages here.

[Clive]

That is an impressive amount of water there Jesus...... I am interested as to what has happened to the ramblas that we talked about in this topic....

http://www.iberianatureforum.com/index.php?topic=2786.0

They have recently been disturbed by machines so surely they have suffered from a lot of erosion?

(Happy new year to you amigo en Almeria )

[Jesus Contreras]

That is an impressive amount of water there Jesus...... I am interested as to what has happened to the ramblas that we talked about in this topic....

http://www.iberianatureforum.com/index.php?topic=2786.0

They have recently been disturbed by machines so surely they have suffered from a lot of erosion?

(Happy new year to you amigo en Almeria )

Hi Clive.

I don´t know if at the Velez area has been raining so much as at the coast... but water has indeed come to their ancent ways here, so everything disturbing its path has been rambled (rambla) down to the sea. I am not able to go up to the mountains for doing my job, because nearly all roads are destroyed; I did not see this since 1991. Authorities has begun repairing the main ways.

Almería is always so... every 20-30 years there appears what we name a "riada" (lot of rain and ramble) that destroys everything, but in these 20-30 years, the next generation always forget that they must be cautios with the riverbeds... and again build and use in or near these beds. So, it is a tragedy when the storms come periodically, because people forget the past ones. They now name this phenomenon CAMBIO CLIMATICO, but this is so old as humankind, and more... logically.

Be carefull with your house... it looks Niagara falls   

Regards

Jesús

[Los Gazquez]

This is not fair. The Sierra Maria-Los Velez has had showers but not enough to fill my rainwater tank. Just enough to turn my road into the Somme.

[lavanda]

Here, in Extremadura we have had the heaviest rainfall in 30 years. The arroyos are streams, the streams are rivers, the rivers are full and the campo has been flooded. We were cut off from the village for nearly three weeks as all our access roads had the normally dry fords flooded up to one metre. No one is complaining - although we had a few tense moments as the garden flooded and the water crept nearer the house. We also had one, only one, blissful day of snow - the first in 27 years. We got 10 cms and the campo was a fairy-tale sight.