SE1, Thames and floods

Pobably watched too much extreme weather C4 - but it said early last year the Thames flood barrier was raised 8 days in a row (one day a year was expected) and it might not have the 30 years life planned.

Anyone know if there are plans to build a new one? And how realistic is the threat to SE1? Are all the bits which were once Marsh at risk?

The Thames Barrier was only designed to deal with trends up to 2030.

There is "work in progress" on the scope for any future flood protection - led by the Environment Agency and known as the Thames Estuary 2100 project.

http://www.thamesweb.com/page.php?page_id=60&topic_id=9

Link to dates that Thames Barrier has been raised:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/regions/thames/323150/335688/341764/805736/?version=1&lang=_e

The GLA produced a report on flooding in London in November 2002, whicn included the statement:
"The current estimate is that £4bn will be necessary to upgrade defences against tidal flooding"
They were looking for central Government to foot the bill...

http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/environment/flooding.pdf (pdf file)
or
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/environment/flooding.rtf (text format)

4bn? Ouch! Doesn't look like they'll be needing to build water sports venues for the 2012 Olympics!

More and more glad I learnt to sail last year.

Yesterday's Sunday Times had an article about this - a new flood barrier at the mouth of the estuary seemed one option - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1431511,00.html

The last time Central London was seriously affected was 1928 (1952 was of course the biggie most people are aware, of but that was outlying areas, notably Canvey Island, Tilbury and so on). When it was bad it was very very bad - but then we got the embankment, the barrier and so on it became a bit more safe to use those marshes... This from the Vauxhall Society web site:
http://www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk/Floods.html

Scope for a great (?) disaster movie based on the breakdown/sabotage of the Thames Barrier at a crucial moment...

And feeling some relief I'm not in Carlisle this weekend.

Mark.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10 January 2005 6.42am by markandjoan.

there was one of those "what would you do?'" programs on tv not so long ago where the poor panellists were faced with a storm surge affecting the Thames Estuary - the barrier worked fine, but as the water level rose higher outside (killing people etc..), they were faced with the option of lowering it to ease the flooding outside (and save lives) but flooding the now evacuated central london (ruining businesses).

Funny you should mention a film - "Split Second", c. 1991, was set in a flooded London. 2008, and starred Rutger Hauer. It was shot entirely on location in SE1, at the Jam Factory.

Awful B movie fodder unfortunately, but kind of interesting if you know the building.

Just had a quick look on Internet movie database: it looks fantastic :-)

Great tagline:

"2008. The future has never looked more dangerous."

and Paulh missed out the best bit of the plot:

"In a futuristic London, the rising sea levels mean that large areas are under feet of water. Hauer plays a cop who previously lost his partner to some strange creature. Now the creature is back and its after him."

and a quote:

Captain:
Are you telling me there's something running around loose in the city, ripping out people's hearts and eating them so he can take their souls back to hell?
Dick Durkin:
Looks that way.
Stone:
Hallelujah.

And you call that awful...

Maybe we should start an SE1 movie club dedicated to films shot in the area, the more awful the better of course (the NFT can take care of the good stuff...)

Mark.

And presumably, somewhere in the synopsis they said "He's a cop who likes to do things his own way"... :-)


OK, two more from the factory...

The Killing Zone (one external scene)
- Silly.

Small time obsession. (several external & internal scenes)
- Watchable. Story of a group of twenty something children of polish immigrants. Manages, mostly, to avoid the more obvious cliches.

Still grab here... http://www.myjamfactory.com/Upload/Photo/FullSize/53.jpg

Holy smoke! what expertise on B movies...but after the Tsunami and the mud slides in California I'm less and less sure of surviving for much longer. We live on the 14th floor....will be buying a rubber dinghy soonest!