28th/29th Oct: preparing for a flood

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Late on Thursday 26th October the EA issued a Flood Alert for the period of Friday to Sunday 27th to 29th October. Due to “industrial action” this was an automatically generated alert with no details as to levels.  There was also a Met Office yellow warning for rain in force.

On Friday 27th the Southampton City Council provided a more detailed alert with possible flood levels for the weekends tides.  At around midnight on Saturday the EA upgraded its alert to a Flood Warning for the Itchen Estuary for the Sunday’s tide (29th October).

Although the forecast water levels (possibly 5.6 mCD) would not flood my house it seemed a good idea to check the door barriers were still OK and that the “bilge pump” still worked, so I put them in place on the 28th and tested the pump, which worked.  In the event the Sunday tide only just started to lap through the staging boards outside my shed.