Dan Q

Tag: flood 2026

F-Day plus 3

It feels inconceivable to me that we’re only at F-Day plus three; that is, three days since a flash flood rushed through the ground floor of our house and forced us to evacuate. We’ve been able to visit since and start assessing the damage, but for now I figured that what you’d want would be the kinds of horrible pictures that make you say “wow; I’m glad that didn’t happen to me”.

These pictures are all from F-Day itself (which happened to be Friday the 13th; delightful, eh?):

A particularly horrifying moment was when the seals on the patio doors gave way and the dining room began to flood, and we had to pivot to laying sandbags to protect the kitchen from the dining room rather than to protect the house as a whole. (Eventually, every ground floor room would be affected.)

A house under lots of water.
The water came in so quickly! An hour earlier, a deliveryperson had to wade carefully through a puddle to reach our front door. But by this point, the entire ground floor was under a foot of dirty water.
A flooded hallway.
It’s heartbreaking to see a house that you love and cherish as it starts to look like a scene from Titanic.
A flooded living room.
Soon enough we had to pivot from trying to hold back the waters to trying to save what we could. By the time the water level reached the air bricks and vents, we were having to make split-second choices about what we had time to save.
Flooded bookshelves.
Not all of the books made it, but most of them did.
An electrical socket, partially underwater.
The fire brigade wisely had us switch off our electricity supply before the first row of sockets went underwater.
A woman carries a dog out of a flooded house.
The dog was incredibly brave; retreating slowly up the stairs (while barking at the rising water!). But eventually she, too, required rescue.
Close up of the woman carrying the dog.
In one of the few moment of levity, Ruth got to ‘play firefighter’ by carrying the poor pupper out of the building. By this point, the water depth was taller than the dog is.

We’ve had a few nights in Premier Inns, but it’s a new week and it’s time to hassle the insurance company to come and have a look around. And then, maybe, we can start working out where we’ll live so the repair work can start.

Ugh.

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Normal life

I want normal life back now, please.

I appreciate that it’s only 40-ish hours since my house flooded and we had to move out. But with all the stress and activity that’s necessarily followed, it feels like it’s been so much longer.

Unrelated note: why has the person in the room above me at this hotel been using a pogo stick since around 05:30?

The calm after the storm

This morning, from my Premier Inn window, the skies are clear. I could almost forget that, just 4 miles away, my house is full of water.

Today may well be a day of waders and damage assessment, conversations with insurance companies and of working out where we’ll be living for the near future.

Sun rising through hazy but clear skies.

But strangely, what’s thrown me first this morning was that I couldn’t make this post submit.

Turns out my crosspost-to-mastodon checkbox was checked. Because my Mastodon server… runs on my homelab. Which is currently unplugged and in one of the highest rooms of a house with no electricity or Internet access. (Or, probably, running water… although that matters less to a homelab.)

I think I moved it before it got wet, but yesterday is such a blur that I just don’t know. I remember we spent some time fighting back the water with sandbags and barricades. I remember the moments each room began to fail, one by one, and we started moving whatever we could carry to higher floors (max props to folks from Eynsham Fire Bridade for helping with the heavy stuff). But if you ask me what order we rescued things in, I just don’t know.

I guess we’ll find out when the waters recede, and it’s safe to go check.

Fucking hell.

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Flood

My house is under water.

A flooded house.

Well, fuck.

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