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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

This video is a clip form one shot at the foot of Muswell Hill by Paul Rennison looking south-east along Park Road.

Which other areas of Haringey saw flooding?

Surely Green Lanes and Turnpike Lane must have suffered at the usual points?

Tags for Forum Posts: flood, floods

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OK down here on the Gardens, but looked like a monsoon in my garden.... 

Link to video (hosted on HoL)

Suitable weather for a tropical looking planting scheme!

This pic was a little further along Park Rd from that video location, south towards Crouch End Bdwy, just by the junction with Park Ave South and the entrance into the cricket & tennis clubs by Shepherd's Lane. My poor dog in the pic had to be carried from a point a few yards from here as the water was up to her chin! 

It looks like it was intense around your patch. I guess it must have all come cascading down Muswell Hill. 

It was the worst rain I've seen here in 13 years. We have a drain outside the front basement that gets overwhelmed about once every 4-5 years.  Yesterday the water was well up the door there. But it then went down quickly and mysteriously the bedroom on the other side of the door was not flooded.

Here's Wood Green from Lorna Brown.

A lot of these floods are where the now-culverted Moselle River which originates in Highgate Woods, passes underneath and is probably bursting out.

Wonder how much was due to Road Drains not being cleaned ?

Not forgetting current drains was never designed to accept so much water

Noticed that many drains I have walked past are mostly blocked with rubbish

Even electric vehicles create brake and tyre dust 

In the higher areas surrounding the areas of the flooding in Park Rd and Priory Road N8 approx 50% of the drains / gullies are blocked. I have posted 3 shots. I have many more. On the day after the flooding one local resident suggested that the floods might have something to do with blocked drains. Cllr Seema Chandwani replied that 'the drains aren't blocked'. I posted a number of shots with the tag: 'No blocked drains?' Cllr. Chandwani replied: 'It just rained yesterday'.

Since then I have posted shots of numerous blocked drain covers on The Crouch End Appreciation Society Facebook page with a follow up. This has had a huge reaction with most people quite rightly outraged that the drains in this area are so badly maintained. Do check it out as some contributors have gone into quite a bit of detail. I am pushing hard to ensure that there is a meaningful programme of regular drain clearance in the borough. I say 'meaningful' because apparently the council hires a contractor to carry out this work. (You could have fooled me.) I am going to push further to check the log of works done and ask if anyone from the council ever inspects such work. It would help if those from the Harringay area could also give examples of blocked drains and how effective the clean up programme was when reported. A picture paints a 1,000 words so if you have similar examples then please post - because apparently 'the drains aren't blocked.'

Attachments:

Another example off a blocked drain.

Attachments:

And another...

There aremany posts on HoL's back pages about past flooding in Harringay ward, elsewhere in Haringey Borough and more generally.  I suggest it may be worthwhile to take a look and perhaps learn from past events in particular locations.

This week, the severe floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have shown us that this problem, though sometimes localised, is far wider and now far more dangerous than it was been in the recent past.

I very much support the proposal for residents to photograph and report local flooding; blocked drain gullies; and also report the success or failure in unblocking them.  It's more "eyes on the street" - to borrow Jane Jacobs' phrase - as a way of keeping Haringey and Transport for London on its toes.

To be fair to Cllr Seema Chandwani, of whom I'm no fan, she may well be right about some drain gullies becoming blocked after heavy rains. For the obvious reason that rain can and does wash loose stones, litter  and other stuff into the drain gully pots.

It's also accurate in a general sense that heavy and prolonged rain can itself block the drainage system.  With water. Which means that even more rain from higher-up results in stormwater overtopping the gullies. so however squeaky clean the local pipe system may be, it then operates as feeders to local pooling.

Among many other points to note is the gradual but extensive covering of frontages, gardens and back lots with housing extensions, infill new builds, parking lots and other non permeable surfacing.  Even without climate change this process has been steadily storing-up problems over years. If you've cut down trees or paved over ground, you are probably a tiny part of the problem.

I've long thought that medieval farmers however poor, weren't stupid when it came to the dangers of flooding. They knew for example about floodable water meadows and flood channels including the need to dig and clear ditches across open fields. Also that ponds can fill up and hold back water.

I also remember a delightful conversation maybe twenty years ago, with a resident who told me her joy as a girl paddling with her friends in floodwater near Broad Lane Tottenham.

Many years ago Haringey employed a drainage team. One or two of them I found mines of information. One day I got an informal tip-off that the team was being sacked and all their papers including maps thrown away. I asked for the maps at least to be saved and stored. I imagine the function was taken over by planners & Degeneration teams: servants of the developers, those magical demi-gods who know how to build everything and anything anywhere for profit. Without any limits or consequences.

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