I am supposed to be back at 'Art in Action' today, but given the fact that it took nearly *7* hours to get from Oxford to Broadway last night and I can't establish if ANY of the East/West roads in the area are now passable to get in this morning. So if anyone IS heading that way can they please give the Clockmakers my apologies, and hopefully I can sort something out for tomorrow.
What pigged a number of us off last night was the complete absence of ANY official passing on information. The few locals who were telling us that a road was blocked were unable to say if other routes were open, and basically there were NO roads open East/West for a large section of Oxfordshire /Warwickshire/Worcestershire/Glocestershire. Since there are so FEW routes across country, half a dozen road blocks would have removed the need to drive
10 miles up a road ( such as the A3400 ) only to find a tractor up to it's lights in water. These road blocks SHOULD have been directing people to drop in points where we COULD establish if we could get home.My eventual route took me back out to Banbury ( although it was also flooded ) across to Stratford, down the Fosse Way and in over the top. But I only managed to get home because Firemen had pumped out Chipping Campden by midnight.
I keep seeing news reports about all these emergency shelters being open, but where the f**k were they and where were ANY information sources? I only herd on the radio traffic news that Morton was impassable around 11.00 AFTER I had made it to within 1 mile of the other side. Reports of problems on the M4 are a little useless when one is 30 miles north and could probably not even reach it as at least I did know there was no point going A34, M4 and M5 :)
Now I've got to try and get over to the Workshop 3 miles away and see what the damage is there. James could not even get that far yesterday so nothing could get lifted off the floor :(
In the meantime - anybody got any ideas as to why one of the ring mains in the house will be tripping the main supply. I've unhooked it to get power back but I probably need to lift the carpet and floor to see if the space under the house is flooded, but I'm sure only wires go through that area. I don't think there are any junction boxes below the floor. Sheila managed to keep it out of the garage yesterday, but I suspect water may have got in the air bricks :(