I haven't posted some of these pictures up anywhere on UK forums because my good friend (Damo) lost his house in the floods of last year and these pictures would be a bit painful for him to see......he still hasn't been able to move back in after 7 months and it will be some time yet!
Back in July 2007 massive floods hit certain areas of the UK. Where I live in Bristol, we were lucky - but Gloucester (pronounced Glosster) got hit pretty bad! Being only an hour away from me and knowing my good friend lived there I couldn't just go to bed knowing that people were losing everything when parked on my drive was a vehicle that may be able to help.
I headed out with a flask of tea (typical Brit!), a few towing straps and a tank full of fuel.
After 4 hrs of fighting through gridlock on the motorways and choas on the roads of Gloucester, I was quickly summoned to the side of the road by a policeman on foot who was directing traffic away from the floods. He radioed through to his colleagues to the let them know that a 'capable vehicle' had arrived on the scene!
Before long I was being directed by the police around various parts of the floods to try and recover ambulances/police cars etc...that had been stuck in the deep water. One particular 'mission' was to recover an elderly couple from an ambulance that was trapped in deep water. After pulling the ambulance out of the floods, I had to relay the old couple to the hospital for treatment (along with the medics/ambulance crew) and then take them back home so there was space on the ward for more emergenices.
After a long night of recovering people and vehicles, I headed home.
The next day saw more rain and even more flooding! Within minutes I was back on my way to Glouester and straight to my friend Damo's house to try and help him evacuate because the water was rising more and more.
Most of the roads near his house were underwater....the road shown below seemed passable until I got a few hundred yards into it and found the water gushing in throught the front door (the footwell of the Mystery Machine is a LONG way from the ground!) I had to turn back and try another way!
The road to Damo's
A few hundred yards in and I knew this was getting too deep!!!!
After finally finding a route that was passable, I made it to his house only to find most of his land underwater!!!
This used to be his garden, paddock and stables!!
This used to be his drive!!
I got my waders on and started helping with the evacuation. Within no time Damo had a phonecall from a friend (the landlord of the local pub) who lived a few miles away....his wife was 10 days overdue and their pub was completely cut off from all sides! An atttempt had been made to rescue them eariler but the rescue land rover had got washed away in the current of the flood water! (driver got out unharmed)
The rescue helicopter could recover the husband, but they couldn't help the wife because the harness would be/could be harmful to the preganant lady and her baby! He was ringing Damo to see if he had any ideas how they could get out of the pub??
That was it - I was off to see what I could do accompanied by my friend Paul who had joined me in the evacuation mission.
We drove down to the crossroads 1.5 miles from the pub to be faced with this:
This view was the start of 1.5 miles of deep water, strong cross currents and no idea if we would make it through! Just past the white house you can see the water change from being smooth....this is where the rapid currents started sweeping across what used to be the road! We were about to drive into the biggest flood Gloucester had ever seen and we were going to be in it for quite some time! Look closely at the left hand side of the picture and you can make out the 4ft fence sloping into the water.....this gives some indication of how deep the water was going to be! The road doesn't flatten out until it reaches the white house!!!
After a minute considering what I was about to do, I just engaged 4WD and went for it! These pics really do NOT show the true force of the water cutting across the road or how deep we were....
To say that I was scared was an understatement!
It took us 10 mins to cover the 1.5 miles to the pub. The whole time I was wrestling with the steering to try and keep the Delica from being bucked all over the road. Water was nearly up to my knees inside the cab and the rear of the car was filling with water!
Most of the way there, the water was just below the windshield on the car. Sometimes it was lapping over the windshield!!! (just to put it into perspective - the bottom of the windshiled of the Mystery Machine is exactly 5' 4" from the ground! (1.62m!!)
Considering I didn't have a snorkel, I do not know how the car made it through.....but it did.....AND back again with the pregnant woman! The normal wading depth is just above the tire on an L300.....but even with 33" tyres I was WAY over this limit and the car still kept going!
All I can say is THANK YOU Mitsubishi for creating such an awesome machine and also THANK YOU Mystery Machine for being such a dependable vehicle that has show its true colours in times of crisis!
Hopefully none of us will ever have to face this sort of situation - but if you do, I very much doubt you'd be any better off in any other vehicle??
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Call me BCDelica-less
