Written by Rain is nothing more than an inconvenience to most people’s plans, but to the residents of Freuchie it is a cause of concern and sleepless nights. The weekend of the 10th/11th January was a wet one, as most people will have no doubt noticed, but the late evening of the 11th into the early hours of the 12th was a period of alarming heavier rainfall.
John A Thomson, Chairman of Freuchie Flood Action Group checked the culvert entrance at Freuchie Mill around 21:30 and was pleased to see the Freuchie Burn waters cascading down the hill were being easily handled by the culvert. However, this all changed after a period of heavier rainfall that lasted a few hours. Upon checking the culvert at 23:15 it was a cause for some concern and resulted in the camera being brought out into the stormy weather to record the sequence of the next few hours. The photograph below shows the high water levels at Freuchie Mill.
Photo: Freuchie Mill culvert at 23:15
By 00:30 the water level had risen to such a high degree that he started to fear another flood event as the spare capacity to handle the burn waters became less and less!
Photos: Freuchie Mill culvert at 00:30
When checked at 01:00, the levels were still as high at Freuchie Mill. It was time to check on some of the other watercourses in to see if they were in danger of causing flooding. Both Green Tree Brae and The Feus had spare capacity to cope with the relevant burn and drainage ditch waters, but even these water courses could have caused flooding if the rainfall had turned heavy again.
Photos: Green Tree Brae and The Feus at 01:00
The flow through the culvert pipe under the A92 at the New Inn Roundabout was low in relation to the capacity of water that it is able to handle. Flooding at Freuchie Mill is likely to occur with only margin increases in water volumes up at New Inn.
Photos: A92 – New Inn culvert at 01:00
Thankfully the heavy rainfall eased over the next few hours and provided enough of a rest bite for the water level to start dropping by 02:45.
Photos: Freuchie Mill culvert at 02:45
The water level of Freuchie Burn was still running high at 09:00 on the 12th, even although there had been little rainfall since the early hours of the morning.
Photos: Freuchie Mill culvert at 09:00
Thanks go again to SEPA for their sharing of the local rainfall data for this period:
|
Date |
Time |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
11/01/2009 |
00:00:00 |
0 |
|
11/01/2009 |
01:00:00 |
0 |
|
11/01/2009 |
02:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
03:00:00 |
0 |
|
11/01/2009 |
04:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
05:00:00 |
0.8 |
|
11/01/2009 |
06:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
07:00:00 |
0 |
|
11/01/2009 |
08:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
09:00:00 |
0.4 |
|
11/01/2009 |
10:00:00 |
0.6 |
|
11/01/2009 |
11:00:00 |
1.4 |
|
11/01/2009 |
12:00:00 |
1.4 |
|
11/01/2009 |
13:00:00 |
1.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
14:00:00 |
1.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
15:00:00 |
1.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
16:00:00 |
0 |
|
11/01/2009 |
17:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
18:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
19:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
20:00:00 |
1.2 |
|
11/01/2009 |
21:00:00 |
0.8 |
|
11/01/2009 |
22:00:00 |
2.6 |
|
11/01/2009 |
23:00:00 |
3.4 |
|
12/01/2009 |
00:00:00 |
2.8 |
|
12/01/2009 |
01:00:00 |
1.2 |
|
12/01/2009 |
02:00:00 |
0.6 |
|
12/01/2009 |
03:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
12/01/2009 |
04:00:00 |
0 |
|
12/01/2009 |
05:00:00 |
0 |
|
12/01/2009 |
06:00:00 |
0 |
|
12/01/2009 |
07:00:00 |
0 |
|
12/01/2009 |
08:00:00 |
0.2 |
|
12/01/2009 |
09:00:00 |
1 |
|
12/01/2009 |
10:00:00 |
0.4 |
Please note: This data has not be fully quality control checked
Table 1: SEPA rainfall data for Newton of Falkland
The data supports the water levels observed and photographed, with the most intense rainfall occurring between 21:00 on the 11th and 00:00 on the 12th. It also shows the rainfall was in no way exceptional based on historical data.
The daily rainfall data, which is taken from 9am to 9am, also makes for interesting reading:
|
Date |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
08/01/2009 |
0 |
|
09/01/2009 |
0 |
|
10/01/2009 |
5.8 |
|
11/01/2009 |
21.6 |
|
12/01/2009 |
0.6 |
Please note: This data has not be fully quality control checked
Table 2: Daily rainfall for Newton of Falkland
Freuchie Mill was only one heavy downpour away from yet another flood event that could have caused serious property damage. Mother Nature kindly decided to give Freuchie Mill residents a break on this occasion, but she may not be so benevolent next time around.
Time is of the essence to find the solutions required to control the surge waters coming down Freuchie Burn and to put in place effective flood prevention and protection measures to protect the homes and other property at Freuchie Mill. It also shows how the other identified flood risk areas in Freuchie must be investigated and protected as a priority.
Technorati Tags: flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, New Inn, SEPA
Hi,
Im Ross from No.7 in the Flats here at Freuchie Mill. I just came across this website the other week. Yup, I took the cameraphone footage and pictures of the flood and it was my infamous photo of the shed in the hole that made the papers!
Like you, every time it rains heavily, both myself and Angela begin to get edgy thinking “will it happen again?”.
From your photos of a fortnight ago, it wasn’t far from it.
We lost our car in the flood and even though we were insured we still are thousands of pounds out of pocket to get it replaced. I dont want to go through the hassle of that again.
I have a few ideas that could maybe be brought up at the next meeting:
How about an infared PTZ IP webcam so that Freuchie Mill residents can monitor the situation outside when it rains heavily?
Our flat, and several others, face the back and we cannot just look out the window to keep an eye on the carpark. A webcam that is accessable to all Freuchie Mill residents, either by local WiFi or via the net, it would provide peace of mind and early warning should it flood again. An added benifit would be increased security too.
I am up most nights anyway and had such a camera been available the night of the flood, I would have been able to see the flood start, alerted whom I could and possibly saved several cars and property from being destroyed.
Such a camera could be installed at the top of the flats to overlook the carpark and culdesac or maybe on a sturdy tree or installed post overlooking the culvert to check on water levels.
I don’t know about funding to pay for it though.
If something like this would be given the go-ahead, I would be willing to monitor the camera most nights and if the situation got bad enough, alert everyone either by phone or chapping on doors in the hopes that property can be saved.
Its worth keeping in mind that even with the proposed flood prevention measures that Kingdom Housing proposes, a flood could still happen and again, at least with a simple webcamera monitoring the situation, cars and property, time and hassle could be saved.
Another idea is an automated weather station installed somewhere at Freuchie Mill. Something similar to what http://www.fifeweather.co.uk uses at Lochgelly, it could be set up so that the data is uploaded in realtime to the web. Mostly the rain guage would be of use to Freuchie Mill residents, specifically the amount of rain per hour.
While not as useful as the webcamera, the weather station could be set so that if it rained over a certain amount per hour, emails or text messages could be sent or even someone monitoring could raise the alarm before a possible flood occurred.
Anyway, a couple of useful ideas I hope.
Ross.
Hey Ross,
Glad you eventually found us.
Our ambition for flood protection and prevention measures are more than the big engineering proposal by Kingdom’s engineers. We need to be controlling the flow of water away up the hill before it ever get’s down to Freuchie Mill.
I was actually up and about at 5:20am on the morning of the flood and thought the flooding would be similar to the previous three flood events. Here was me moving the car out of the driveway onto the road at the side of my property! If only I had driven it straight out!!! There is nothing anyone could have done that morning to stop the homes flooding… there was just too much water cascading from all direction into Freuchie Mill.
We are looking into some ideas for monitoring and have give some thought to other things like cameras, but as you say… “show us the money” to do it.
We’ve got a public meeting coming up on the 3rd February where Arthur Philp of the Association of British Insurers will be coming along to talk insurance. I hope you can make it and let him know your experiences of the insurance industry!
Regards
John