The Great Flood of ’08 . . . The Worlds Most Expensive Duck Pond
Daily Musings | Monday 18 August 2008 by Richard Blayney
I don’t think I have ever seen rain like the rain I seen on Saturday past. It came down for nearly 24 straight hours and it came down hard. The upshot of it all was not only the cancellation of the Ulster Grand Prix in the hills above Belfast, but the flooding of the city. Ok so the entire city didn’t go underwater but one look at the shiny new West Link underpass under Broadway Roundabout would make you believe the people of Northern Ireland were only a step away from building an Arc and declaring this the second great flood.
The picture above says it all. Millions upon Millions of pounds have been spent on creating this underpass only for it to fill right to be brim with 100-million litres of water when a nearby river burst its banks to create the Worlds most expensive Duck Pond. With the Olympics on our TV’s as I type, we can now assure London that we have found them a stage in which to host the 2012 rowing should they need a venue or at least a place for Michael Phelps to go for 8 Gold’s again.
I don’t know all the details of how and why it happened, come to think of it I don’t think anyone does and that is why a full enquiry has been launched by the local Government, but it certainly shouldn’t have happened and whether it was a lack of drainage or what, something needs to be done before it happens again. When you build something shaped like a bathtub you have to assume it will fill with water without fitting a plug-hole! I wouldn’t like to be the chief designer of the project right now!
In the end the water was all sucked out, amazingly nobody was killed or even injured and only one car was trapped at the bottom.
The 2009 Portursh Raft race that my work annually enters will now be run from the Broadway Roundabout.
Below is some other photos from around the city from the flooding from the BBC Website & Cycling News:
No seriously, the one above isn’t from the Flooding. That is Sam Craig on the right during the Trans-Rockies Challenge in Canada. No sign of Matty though I think that might be him in the far distance being washed down stream.
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