Floods in the U.K.

THIS IS A MODEL OF WRITING FOR STUDENTS 3ºESO AS A STORY IN EXTREME WEATHER. TRY TO USE SOME OF THE VOCABULARY UNDERLINED AND DO NOT HESITATE TO USE THE LINKS.

This story happened some years ago when I was living in a smallholding in Greaves Lane in High Green, near the Chapeltown area of Sheffield in the U.K.

I think we must learn from this experience. In the area where I lived there was a stream called Blackburn Brook which runs directly past his house and that night it burst its banks, with 2ft of water washing over his garden and then inside.

Suddenly I woke up as I noticed my feet were wet in the bed! I realized my bed was floating in my flat, so I spent the day digging trenches to try to keep the water away, although I could not keep it out of my home and some of my carpets were ruined. The extreme weather must be treated with respect.

It was terrible, I thought we were going to lose the house. The river broke its banks and about 2ft of water ran over the garden. We've got away quite lightly compared to some but we have lost carpets, the kitchen units and decorations. We have had flooding before but never anything like this.

It was very quick when it came. I was frantically trying to stop the water coming into the house. We dug ditches out and to a large degree it worked as we would have been under about 3ft of water - it was awful." We were also affected by flooding just two years ago, but water did not come into the house then. I was coming out of my basement window.

The day after the flood was even worse. There wasn't any electricity and it was not expected to be restored until at least two days later as the sub-station was under 5ft of water. My utility room and entertainment room were completely destroyed, and I spent the following day pumping water out. I think I spent another two days before I could get all the water out. I managed to save about 10% of my belongings, but the rest I had to throw away.

All our phones were down and our computers didn't work at all, and people were trying to contact the rescue teams while the power was off and not many of them were coming down for help to the hospitals. Some patients were coming down with things like chest pain, but anything worse than that and they were sending back home as the hospital was a chaos in the floods.

The roads around the city weren't too bad, but people were evacuated from the Winn Gardens Estate, which is where many of the affected people lived.Some people left their cars at the streets there and went home last night and ran back in that morning, because all the roads where they lived were under water. Nobody could drive after the floods.

Nobody died then, but this is the most extreme weather experience I have had in my life, and now I am very worried about the climate change in the world as I think this isn't any normal at all.