Never would I have credited the poetic image of the river here with the demonic until last night’s rage – dark, tumultuous floodwaters pouring through the devastated cut, forcing it’s way through the now marginal gap under the stone bridge at the foot of town, lapping at the nearby walls of buildings – brimming with mud and detritus from the uplands and the fell tops: shattered tree trunks floating pell-mell and crashing into their suffering relatives on the river bank; white-water forming where there was nothing but staid grass and shale before – the local alert goes out at 4.35am and everyone comes out onto the street to check and see for themselves how long they may have before the whole lot breaches the defensive wall (already showing signs of damage) – she has risen approximately a foot an hour since the heavy rains last evening made their way eastwards filling the mountain becks and creating new forces where yesterday there were none – the long white arteries replete – the locals are out, lines of them in the night, putting up sandbags and other flood barriers in the hope that they can salvage their properties if the worst eventually happens – possessions are moved upstairs (for those unfortunate enough to live closest), cars are driven to higher ground, passing ‘hello’s’ are uttered as if to say ‘good luck; we’re all in this together if it be so’ and then the night is left to do what it will – the rain comes again a half hour or so later and folk wake from their already disturbed slumber, listening hard for any tell-tale noises that might suggest the proximity of water without; and each says a prayer (whatever denomination) that the rains might cease –
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5.35am - keeping waterproof clothes near, listening to nothing but the wind hollering – spirals of sound fretting and hassling the roof – trees glisten, slimy with the deluge, slick skinned – then the occasional silence and to be grateful for the minutes of respite from the rain – when it comes again it’s noise on the flat roof is like the popping of hundreds of embers; an odd comparison to make, two opposing elements but there it is crackling over and over, the burden of my anticipation outweighing any chance of sleep – the land has turned silver by day, fields awash, sheep and cattle stranded on fragile spurs – and in here it is like existing in an echo chamber, some facet (faucet?) of water torture with our lives placed up on tables or any other available space off the floor – and yet oddly the air is so sweet and cool, maybe some airborne part of the mountains has been washed down with the waters and perfumed the air below?
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Sitting in - waiting for the flood to come – imminent here - across Cumbria there are severe weather warnings – heightened senses, the rain hammering on the roof, waves of it coming at times almost silent then streaming across in the gales, rippling feet above my head – the drains are already backing up and swathes of water are forming across the highways – the river level at present is half what it was three nights ago when the first flood warning woke us at 4.30am but it is still early and the water has yet to make it’s way down from the uplands – the river can rise about a foot an hour – sandbags are out in doorways and porches in some forlorn hope that they might stem additional damage – meanwhile the silvery slicks trickle on in nearby gutters, the cacophony of accompanying noises there: the constant enraged sigh of the river; the metallic echoing of rivulets finding drains and forging themselves in there; the barrage of swaying trees and the background roar of storm sound in the atmosphere – it’s all I can do to keep my mind distracted and fill the anticipatory anxiety -
Keswick, Cumbria 15/12/2006
