Floods - protect your cabs!!

[Outrun2]

Well, it finally happened to me today. Had an absolute monsoon/thunderstorm out of the blue mid-afternoon and had water lapping into the garage! Every arcade collector's nightmare

Our garage is at the bottom of a long sloped driveway - there is a full width grate/drain, but the sheer amount of water just filled it up faster than it could empty. Water was even spurting out of the top of all the house drainpipes!! Unbelievable downpour, the wind with it was vicious - the rain was going sideways at one point - car alarms going off everywhere!! Shocking

No cab damage thankfully, the carpet tiles soaked up most of the water and we managed to stem the tide with towels. Just as well the storm went as quick as it came - another 5 minutes of that and we'd have been up to our knees.. and that would have been curtains

We do get a fair amount of flooding round here (Tewkesbury in particular) and suffered badly in 2007. That was steady rain over weeks building up, but this was bam, 10 minutes of hell and gone! At least we were able to dry out the carpet tiles in the glorious sunshine that followed!!!

Scary stuff - you're just powerless - it's horrible. The cabs are too big and heavy to really move out of the way quickly (bear in mind the storm only lasted 10 minutes and these are big, heavy drivers).

Anyway, could have been a LOT worse. I've been dreading something like this happening and now it has - initially I was gutted but I do feel we got away with this. I've looked into flood barriers, but always put it off for another day.

I guess the moral of the story is if you're concerned about flooding - get some protection in place before it's too late!!! Once it starts, there's very little you can do

This was after we'd mopped up most of the water..

Fitting tiles last year was a good idea - they soaked up a lot to prevent the water just swelling into every corner of the garage and we could lift them and dry them out away from the scene of the crime..

Not easy to move these beasts in a hurry..

Sleep well folks!!

 

[muddymusic]

sh*t dude, I'd certainly consider that a lucky escape - could have been far worse

We must have had that Storm here very early this morning, when I came downstairs first thing the fireplace was full of water, and there was a puddle inside one of the kitchen windows. went and checked the garage too and sure enough there was a small pool in the middle of the floor so guessed the sheer volume of water had just been too much for the guttering to handle. That didn't even happen during the flooding here last year so from the way you've described it that sounds about right!

Glad your cabs all escaped unscathed, probably won't see a drop of rain now for another 2 weeks.

 

[Bods]

Crikey mate, thats not good at all.

Thank god your machines are raised off the floor, the carpets etc being all wet are bad enough, but if the cabs got it, that would be aweful.

Don't seem to have to much of a problem here, thankfully the road is on a slight hill, so water runs down, I know when I do the front drive, I will be sloping it away towards the road, with one of those drains like in front of your garage before the road, as thats how it should be now, but just to help as well

When we build the arcade down the garden, it ended up quite high from the ground level, got 3 blues, kinda glad it is that high now, would have to be very very bad to get that high, so should be ok, the shed is quite high as well

Carpet tiles are perfect for places like that

 

[Outrun2]

If I don't see a drop of rain for 2 years it'll be too soon! I've rarely seen anything like it- cars were stopping in the road because they couldn't see to drive!

Sodden floor tiles and a near heartattack was nasty but I definitely feel like I had a lucky escape. It was soooo close to really going south and there would have been nothing I could have done- there was no other route for the water! Seeing the grate overflowing and water pouring down the drive will stay with me for a long time.

Could have been the same storm Olly, it came from the south west. Gotta get some defense in place otherwise I'll be on edge everytime it rains!

 

[Morty]

Looks like a near miss for you.. I'm in cheltenham and everyone stopped to look out the window, like you say it was crazy rain for 5-10 mins, hailstones, thunder

Did not think to look but must check my garage tomorrow morning.. lets hope its not a shocking sight

 

[Outrun2]

I hope you'll be fine mate - good thing about having newer drivers is that the big casters make them stand a few inches off the ground so the precious bit are protected to a degree. Woodies wouldn't fare too well - good thing I've got (smaller) plastic castors on the old OutRun upright too as it was right in the firing line!

Looking out to the driveway now it's all dry, like nothing happened. Only clue is the trail of leaves, grit and soil left behind by the torrent!