I
shudder to think what would have happened if this was repeated today.

Is there any reason why it might not? Has anything been put in place there
to prevent a recurrence, or at least do they have a decent early warning
system?


In 1952 the West Lyn was culverted to the west of its original course
under a part of the town but the river just laughed at that and went back to
its original course. The way the town and river courses were reconstructed
make it a lot less vulnerable to this kind of flooding, but there will
certainly be another one and I doubt if the town will be unscathed.
They had "early warning" in 1952 from simple observation but chose to
ignore it. 9 times out of 10 they would have been right, but not this time.
It would be very difficult for any warning system to distinguish between a
destructive flood and merely swollen rivers and people would ignore it partly
because the decision to abandon one's home must be psychologically very
difficult if one is dubious about the real threat. Also, these events develop
very quickly.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.